A good fish host cooks good meals....

[GaryE15 13]

I've decided my fish aren't eating well enough, and as their host (a nice way of saying I have captive fish...) I have to prepare better meals. So today, I'm doing food prep. 90% of the species I keep are small (under 6cm) insect eaters, but some feast on detritus and plant matter. Every insectivore eats the contents of its prey's guts for veggie matter.

I have 400 grams of mock crab (fish), 500 grams of cooked shrimp, a huge zucchini from the garden, some astaxanthin algae food and gelatin. I dislike the latter ingredient as it's not digested, but it seems to do no harm and has been in fishfood recipes since the 1920s.
This is a new recipe with the zucchini, which will be thinly sliced. Everything else goes into a grinder to become a mixed paste. If the zuccini cooperates, it's one that works well.
I never use old fashioned hacks from the past like beef heart. It was a clever idea before we could get easily digested by fish seafood, but hasn't been needed since the invention of the cargo jet and refrigerated containers. 50 years later, our hobby is as needlessly conservative as can be.

Frozen brine shrimp is mostly water, and I have a contact allergy to bloodworms. That commonly happens when we use bloodworms for a long time, as midge larvae (they aren't worms) have a protein people tend to react to. I have small fish and am not varying the diet enough to get good breeding results. So I invest less than an hour, freeze thin slabs of food, and snap pieces off to feed the tanks 3 or 4 days a week.

Past recipes have included peas, baby food carrots, spirulina, and different types of fish and shrimp. I picked up some inexpensive chicken feed - 100% soldier fly larvae, and I am considering adding it to this recipe. The dried larvae leave a slight calcium residue, and I don't know how the commercial preparers filter that out. I'll probably put about 250 grams in, if it grinds well.

 

[TwoTankAmin47]

My fish were enough work that I stopped trying to feed live foods after the first few years of keeping fish. I did do a bit if this and I feds live red worms and hatched some BBS. I realize that what we feed to our fish is one of the more important things we do for them which has a great effect on their health and lifespan. For many species is it a;so essential for getting them to spawn.

What I have dome is to seek out the next best options I can buy. So I do feed frozen- brine and mysis shrimp and rotifers for fry. I do keep a small number of frozen BBS but they are over priced and only come in cubes it seems. One of the best foods I used to get for smaller mouths and fry was cyclop-eeze. This could be had frozen or freeze dried. They lived in only one lake and some time ago the population crashed and they could not get it going again. Ay least that was the story at the time.

In addition to the frozen I now feed about 8 varieties of the Ebo Aquaristik foods from Germany and a few things from kensfish. My shrimp get their veggie sticks with calcium, I make my own mix of Kens flake and I do a mix of his sinking sticks. I use their Ultra lines. I also use Sera Shrimp food and Vipachips. I also have Jehmco's Algae wafers which replaced the Hikari ones when their ingredients began to decline, imo.

I get a lot of my bulk frozen foods from Jehmco as well. Plus, at my monthly fish club meeting I can usually buy 1 pound slabs of Hikari frozen for less than most places sell them. Sometimes they even have the frozen Daphnia cubes which I snatch up. Plus, there are no shipping costs involved.

I have never cultured any live foods beside a short period of doing BBS. I did this when I had angels breeding. Since my first angel spawn was over 100 eggs I gave up on keeping to domestic varieties and switched to Altums which I never considered trying to breed. The only domestic angel strain I ever wanted and did keep were the double dark black ones.

 

[emeraldking35 86]

In the past I gave my bigger cichlids even cat food from a can. They just loved it and they grew faster. The first time I've tried it to give it to a green terror cichlid which I've kept outdoors for a while. They were together with some Florida crayfish. When I noticed that the cichlids preferred the cat food over their own granulate (I used the cat food for my crayfish). I decided to stick with it. Those cichlids were strong and healthy.

 

[MuddyWaters1 1]

Every insectivore eats the contents of its prey's guts for veggie matter.

Never thought about that- that is interesting! So, even carnivores need some veggies, I guess.... a little bit, anyway. Gotta make sure everything flows right.

 

[MuddyWaters1 1]

Plus, at my monthly fish club meeting I can usually buy 1 pound slabs of Hikari frozen for less than most places sell them. Sometimes they even have the frozen Daphnia cubes which I snatch up. Plus, there are no shipping costs involved.

Wow! Do you have someone from Hikari that attends your meetings or something? That would be great!

 

[TwoTankAmin47]

No- but we have members who own stores or are connected to some in special ways. There is normally a box with about 20 of the 1 pound slabs of mysis, brine and bloods. Occasionally, there is some more. I got my last two packs of daphnia cubes that way.

One nice thing about tfish clubs is ow tey often help each other. While my CLub is DAAS- Danbury Area Aquarium Society which is in CT, it meets in the nature center in Carmel NY. Typical meeting starts with some socializing while people with item for the auction are submitting them and they are recorded. Most of the fish, inverts and plants come from the tanks of members. They mostly sell for well below what they would got for in stores or online. There are a few exceptions. But, the best part is the people selling are very experienced keepers and breeders.

Unfortunately, the fish I bred for the past 20+ years are pricey. So, I almost never sell them at auction. They go for way less than they are worth. However, I have sold things to other members outside of the club setting and they always get a better price than I normally get.

The nice part about the whole auction thing at the meeting is that the the time between when the fish were put into the bag and the time they arrive at the home of the buyers after the meetings is anywhere from about 8 ro 12 hours. It depends upon how far from the meeting a member lives. I bag my shrimp snails and plants starting around 4 p.m. But nothing gets into a bag until about 5 p.m. the meeting ends anywhere from 9:45 to 10:30. My drive is about 30 minutes.

I am also often willing to forgo doing quarantine when I win something and will put the fish into their tanks when I get back home. However, this is not always the case. In a few tanks I will not do this. I have been doing this now for a number of years and never had an issue. It also matter which member is selling the fish. I prefer to bid on items from the more experienced members who have been at this for more than my 25+ years.

I have had planted communities for many years. They are jungles and I have anubias that have outgrown even my 150 and 125. Mt last vendor room was in 2023. There were several plant vendors there. The anubias I had for ale at the event dwarfed the biggest ones offered by the plant folks. So did the driftwood. Most of the pieces were priced over $100 due to their size. But by then I had started my downsizing and they had become surplus.

This is one advantage to being in a club. One can get healthy great fish and plants at excellent prices. My clubd also holds an annual public auction, arranges for shop hops where folks meet and visit a number of fish stores who usually offer us discounts. We also attend other clubs auctions and they do the same for ours.

I normally am not a joiner and I resisted joining a fish club for years. But a friend convinced me I was makig a mistake. She was right. Of you are not in a club and have one not super far away, I urge you to attend a meeting. Most clubs let potential new member do so at no charge. I know my club's annual dues are $25/year. I cannot speak as to what other clubs charge. Also, most weekend events are usually hosted and run by local clubs.

 

[Tomsfish13 13]

While my CLub is DAAS- Danbury Area Aquarium Society which is in CT, it meets in the nature center in Carmel NY.

I went to an auction there and would bet you were there.
I remember getting a pair of swordtails from a reputable Long Island breeder. I can't for the life of me remember what they were but they were rare.
There was one other who wanted them but not as much as me $$$.
You should recognize this from that auction.

Late edit I think the swords were Alphas donated by the Long Island breeder.

 

[MuddyWaters1 1]

I love our fish club and the auctions- I always buy stuff i don't need, but they are fun and you can get incredible deals. I've never seen anyone bring frozen food, though. We're having our big yearly auction this Saturday, actually. I've looked through the lots that have posted so far- I have no business buying any of it....however, I do have a tank laying around doing nothing currently....

 

[TwoTankAmin47]

Those fish are my pics . O mostly bred the B&W Hypancistrus. The pics are mostly L173 plus an H. contradens. The top left pic may be an L236 now part of the H. seideli complex which includes L066, L333, L236, L287, L399, L400, L470.

U rend not to attend auctions because I am afrid I will buy what I really should not