The topic of nitrates might be a good seque into the process of food production and distribution in my reef.
This evening I had to make up a batch of my special Seafood a la Kien and I already had my camera out snapping pics of the nitrate monitor so I figured I'd snap some more photos and document this process in case anyone was curious. I know I'm always curious about what people put into their tanks.
So to start out, I like to buy two or three bags of mixed seafood. Here we have a bag of scallops, shrimp and a seafood medley which consists of octopus and clamy things.
I fill up a blending cup with the three parts of frozen sea foods. Let it sit for a bit and thaw..
Then grab my trusty hand blender and blend away!
The trick here is not to over blend because you don't want to turn it into a V8 cocktail. Rather, you want nice chunky bits that the fish can consume. It takes a bit of practice to get the blending just right. I usually count buzzes. About 5 or 6 buzzes will do the trick.
After blending you get something that looks like this.. [insert mad scientist laughter here]
I then take my trusty reusable coffee filter and strain out what water I can.
After that I'm left with a nice mushy fish meal and place it in a bowl. I also like to add PE Mysis to the meal so I'll thaw out a few chunks and rinse it in the coffee filter as well.
I then add the two together and inject with a healthy dose of Garlic extract.
Stir the whole concoction and voila! Seafood a la Kien.
I like to serve in portions and these handy ice cube trays are the perfect amount.
My reef gets a shot of Formula 1&2 flakes every morning at 10:30am via an automatic feeder. I do the evening feed by hand by grabbing a fish cube out of the freezer and thawing it in some tank water. Every other day I strap a sheet of nori to a rod and throw that into the tank as well.
Seafood a la Kien is also great of target feeding LPS
