Recipes (for fish food, not to make fish into food)

Grins

Girl Reefer...we do exist
May 1, 2007
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Charlotte, NC
I'm thinking of making my own frozen food this next month and wanting to gather any advice or recipes from others that have tried it. I do have Bob Fenner's recipe so I'll share that.


Fenner's Wonderful Marine Mash

4 ounces peeled shrimp
2 ounces mollusks (clams, mussels, oysters)
2 ounces seaweed or algae (spinach if you can't find the seaweed)
1 packet gelatin dissolved in 2 ournces warm tap water
1 ounce liquid mutlivitamin

Thaw any frozen ingredients. Chip the shrimp into half inch pieces and combine all ingredients in a blender. Pulse until the solids have been chopped to the size appropriate for your fishes - very coarse for bigger eaters and fine for very small species or filter feeding inverterbrates.

The finished melange can now be frozen, either in sheets on waxed paper or as one lump formed into a ball. (The latter is then scrubed across a cheese grater each time a portion of food is needed.) By all means, feel free to improvise and improve on this simple recipe. The only hard and fast ruleds are to avoid spoiled or contaiminated ingredients and to stick with protein sources of saltwater origin.

Source: page 145 of Robert Fenner's The Conscientious Marine Aquuarist
 
I've always wanted to make my own food but never really got around to doing it out of fear of introducing contaminants into my tank.

Grins, or anyone else ... any specific precautions that one needs to take while preparing the food ... especially with cleaning part of it ... or is it pretty much the same as if I were cleaning up the shrimp, clams etc for my own cooked meal?

Regards,
Yash
 
Came across this recipe for feeding urchins:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/Urchin/cookie.html

Urchin Cookies

Seaweeds are the preferred diet for most urchins (here on the West Coast we use Macrocystis and Egregia species.), but are not always easy to obtain. Urchin Cookie is a simple recipe using eggs, carrots, seawater and agar to make seaweed substitute that sea urchins seem to like better than kelp. This could be important if you are in the Midwest and there is no seaweed in sight.

1) Chop up fresh carrots into 1/2 - 3/4 inch pieces and fill to the 4 cup line on the blender.
2) Add two WHOLE eggs, shell and all. Break over the carrots.
3) Add 20 grams of plain agar (not nutrient agar).
4) Add sea water to the 4 cup line.
5) Blend until smooth.
6) Pour into a glass baking dish and microwave until boiling. You will need to stop microwave and stir contents repeatedly.
7) Let cool and refrigerate.
8) When solid, cut into strips 1/2 inch by 4-5 inches.

SERVE: Not too much, as even Urchin Cookie will foul the water. If they have not finished it in 48 hours, remove, wait a day and replace with fresh. Urchin Cookie will keep about a week in the refrigerator. The recipe can be scaled for more or less food. Try a half batch the first time.
 
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