Do u mush?
 

So I normally just feed my dishes flake as it is very easy and fast but now that I have a larger tank I'm getting more different fishes that require meaty food such as a blue throat trigger and thinking about getting a copperband. So I would like to make my own fish food(mush)

My ingredient list is shelled frozen shrimp, semi thawed octopus, nori sheets, frozen blood worm, fresh oysters, couple cloves of diced garlic, mybe some type of saltwater frozen shrimp as well as a squeezed lemon to preserve it. Not sure about the quantity of each yet. Everything will be mixed in a food processor and will be flattened thin in a ziplock bag n put in freezer. So my question is.... Are these ingredients good enough or should I add something else as well? Also when u feed do u let it thaw out or just break a piece n throw it in ur tank for all ur fishes to pick at. I suspect that if I let it thaw with tank water before feeding it will very easily pollute my tank. Can anyone who make their own mush give me tips?

I add Agar Agar and spirulina powder to mine. The Agar makes a gelatin sheet that I then cut into portions and freeze.

Do u mix it with tank water n feed or u just drop in a cube n let them tear it apart?

Some vitamins would be good too like vitachem or selcon

Use the search button. Theres some good recipes on there.
You have to be careful on the ingrediants you choose. It also has to be rinsed really good. Most stuff is full of phosphates. Ditch the lemon and get Garlic Guard or Garlic Extreme. Seriously do some research or you'll be posting another thread soon asking about GHA or cyano.

I get some ingredients from Florida Aqua Farms such as bulk gelatin, vitamin mix, and spirulina powder. You shouldn't use more than 8-10% squid as it is very fatty and you can cause health issues if they get too much. I use about 40% white shrimp and smaller portions each of wild Salmon, mussels/clams, roe (from Asian market). I also add Salmon oil (squeezed out of gel caps), Selcon, and garlic extract.

I don't think adding a squeezed lemon would help much. Freezing it is just fine. I bag mine in Ziplock sandwich bags, then put two of those into a Ziplock freezer bag. As long as you sqeeze all the air out of the bags you won't get freezer burn, and don't make more than you can use up in 6 months.

FWIW, I've used this recipe for several years and I don't have any phosphate issues. I don't think what you feed is as important as how much you feed when it comes to phosphate. It is true though that some ingredients do have significantly more phosphate in them, but these ingredients aren't necessarily avoidable. Phosphorus makes up protein, so higher protein foods have higher phosphate.

Here's some reading by Randy Holmes-Farley (2012) on phosphate sources. www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry

I made two large batches several years ago but stopped because it was too much pollution. Blending/chopping the food up produced particle sizes that were too small for most of my fish to care about. The Tangs preferred to graze nori off of a clip over the course of a day and the CBB only wanted to eat Mysis and clam so the krill and seafood medley was largely passed over. The lion fish and eel I keep are also no good at finding food that is just dropped into the tank, they have to be hand fed with tongs. Perhaps if I had a tank larger than 120gal with many more smaller sized fish it would have worked. At the time I followed the advice of this article from 2008: Do-it-Yourself Frozen Food by Steven Pro http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-01/diy/index.php

I always thaw frozen foods before adding them to the tank. It isn't natural for most reef fish to feed from the water's surface and mine have never learnt to. Unless I shut off the return pump a block of frozen food would no doubt float on over to the overflow to the sump quite quickly.

I personally do not add any additives or extras. I just see it as extra junk. Raw whole foods only. But use what you like. I do like to add heavy on white fish meats as they are very rich and oily but others may want to reduce the amount of this. Shrimp are a good filler and binder but have a very high phospahte concentration in comparison to there nutritional value. Don't over do the shrimp. Can't get any fish to eat chucks of squid or octopus so I no longer add them. Basically you can just use what you can find at the time. Raw is always the best source but if your stuck with frozen you can always use that with no problems.

Good rule of thumb is to soak all raw foods in ice water mixed with a teaspoon of baking soda for an hour prior to proccessing. This will help remove the preservatives that are added which are extremely high in phospahtes. Rinse well and process. You want to proccess it so you have a good mix of food size to suit each mouth your needing to feeding.

I put into small sandwich sized ziplock bags and squish them flat to make a thin sheet. Freeze and feed. I don't rinse once it's been froze but a person can do so to remove some of the exrta juices if they like. I just break a piece off, thaw it in some tank water and dump it in.

It is a very rich food source however so the amount and frequency of feeding this food source will be differnt for everyone.

I just place a cube in the tank and let them work on it, it dissolves slowly thus the fish have a chance at eating it and I don't have a cloudy mess.
the CUC find it very quickly too and what the fish don't get to they will.

I use the Agar Agar as its a seaweed based gelatin thus has higher vitamins and minerals than standard gelatin.

I think the ajar ajar to bind the pieces together is a great idea so they don't break apart and polute the water before my fishes eat it. Isn't adding real garlic better than the ones in the bottle since I can mince it so fishes can actually eat pieces of it as well. I read that fresh water fishes should not be feed to saltwater fishes and that mussels clams and oysters contain too much heavy metals. Dunno how accurate these claims are. I was gonna get one of those mixed frozen raw seafood bags at the super market Cuz of the variety of different seafood in it. Was going to wash it good with water and table salt then dry and semi freeze it again n add to food processor with lots of garlic, flake, pellets and nori. Don't want to have so much juices come out if I don't freeze it a lil bit.

Why not keep the food sources separate? Personally I wouldn't add flake and pellet. They are not needed and might be better to keep them as a seperate form of feeding. You may find you are not able to feed the mush daily and as your sole food source anyways which may require you to feed a more controled form of food through pellet or flake. Not every system will be able to handle the amount of excess nutrients that the mush is going to cause on a daily bases. The amount you will be able to feed of it will be based on your system. So personally I wouldn't dirty it up any more then you have to. Feed pellet/flakes when you need to and the raw whole foods when you can and need to. And skip the garlic and binders. The whole food is so nutirent rich you don't need all that junk in there. You'd just be polluting it and your system further with no real bennifit. If you want to add some nori however that is fine but try not to destroy it with the proccessing breaking it down to to small pieces that don't get consumed as it is also very high in phospahtes.

Yea i was planning to feed the mush 2-3x a week only n the garlic is to increase their immune system and promote appetite

I think it matters little what you feed but rather how much you feed.
Overfeeding of pellets is just as bad as overfeeding of raw food. So portion control is key.
In my opinion pellet foods are convenient to us, not so much for the fish.
In the wild clowns eat different foods to wrasses, angels, tangs etc So a 1 pellet fits all their nutritional needs 100% is a little silly.
I'm not against pellets, but believe variety is important.

Mixing the flake or pellets into the jell food will result in dissolved flake/pellet particles dispersing into your tank when you feed the jell, I would imagine. As another member suggested, keep the foods separate. :wink: Less mess and more convenient.

Anthony

Ok I will make a test batch without the flake n pellet to give it a try. Strangely enough my new trigger is eating flake food right away when I fed my new hippo tang. The dealer told me he hasn't been eating anyhing since he got the shipment in last week. The main reason I was thinking of making mush is for hIm. And it's rly weird that my trigger n hippo actually sleeps side by side under my rockwork n always chill together.

I'm not trying to be rude so please don't take this the wrong way. You need to really start researching this hobby and be patient. You should never buy a fish that isn't eating, especially when the store worker tells you.
Listen to a bunch of different peoples opinions and experiences before making decisions. Did you even read those links people have posted to you?

no worries no hard feelings taken.. Yup ive read through the links and also asking additional questions cuz i want to like u said listen to different people's opinions and what works for them. Dont wanna just look at 1 article and follow it exactly because most are bias. I wanna see all the ways different ppl do it differently and maybe combine all the pros from each method together. As for the fish yea i did some research b4 i bought it. Many ppl have trouble with triggers feeding at first but they do become trained n eat. I was fortunate for it to not be picky and eat right away even with flake.

Here's my usual recipe:

I use almost entirely human grade ingredients.

40% white shrimp (uncooked, shells on, I pull the tails off, put the swimmerettes in)
20% Wild Pacific Salmon
25% Green Lipped Mussels (this stuff is amazing)
10% Squid (no more than 10% or fish can get fatty liver disease)
5% Flying Fish Roe (aka Tobiko at Asian grocery)

Use a food processor to blend the crap out of everything, usually one ingredient at a time as some blend easier. Blend the squid while it's frozen. Blend it into a paste.

Then add:

1g Florida Aqua Farms Vitamins per 100g food
1g Nori and/or Spirulina powder per 100g food
1 mL Selcon per 100g food
1 mL Brightwell Aquatics Garlic Extract per 500 g food
1g Wild Salmon Oil per 100g food (I empty human gel caps)

BioAstin Hawaiian Astaxanthin 12mg gel caps (color enhancing algae, buy Hawaiian)
Empty 1 gel cap per 50g of food (gonna be messy, wear gloves)

Mix everything, then heat a small amount of new SW, add gelatin, mix up well, then pour over mash, mix quickly (it will stiffen up quickly as the cool food cools the gelatin).

1g Florida Aqua Farms Gelatin per 30g food

I put 6 -8 ounces into sandwich bags, roll flat, freeze. Then I break off chunks, put into a small glass to thaw, and use a small spoon to break it up and feed.

I stopped feeding my fish the mush Cuz they don't seem to like eating it in a frozen pane and then it just breaks apart n dirty the water.

I thaw it, and scoop bite-sized chunks with a small spoon. The bits that fall apart are coral food. :) Do you have an issue with phosphate and/or nitrate? Do you have good flow? Do you have a good skimmer? If your answers are no, yes, yes, then you're good to go. :D

I mix a bunch of fish food together thawed out and then pour the mix into the mini ice cube trays you get at the dollar store then freeze it and pop them all out and toss them in a big ziplock

Easy to thaw and ready to feed

Also awesome for tank sitters to tell them to defrost one or two cubes and just feed that

just my 2 cents

I do the same, but I thaw/rinse each type of food in water and then strain out the food. Amazing how much Dirty" water is left behind. Since some of the food is already frozen and I will be freezing mine I add selcon and some other vitamins,garlic etc because it is fairly common knowledge that freezing any kind of foods (human or fish)reduces the nutritional value
I have used the "dirty" water to feed corals etc. it seems to be good, but does raise the phosphates, so I spot feed small amounts

another 2 cents worth