Do you make your own Reef Foods?

[Eatfrenchfries]

Just wanted to see if anyone else makes their own fish/coral food rather than buying frozen packets. 

I like to purchase live shellfish to make clam cubes for my fish and oyster puree for the corals. 

Up until GBR's recent interview I had used capelin eggs but now have switched over to frozen pollock eggs. 

Covering anything equal or greater than 1 micron -> 1inch. 

Costs less than $25 for a few months of food. 

 

 

 

 

[Krux]

My wife would absolutely murder me if I made cuisine for the fish in her food processor.  She only really uses it during berry cobbler season, but still... especially after we watched the Ordinary Sausage video on anchovy ice cream on Youtube yesterday.

 

That said, I believe you just came up with and offered to demo a future meeting topic?  I am interested-adjacent in learning more.  I also took note of Rudy's food recipe, particularly since I zoom by H-Mart on my way home every day.

[LavenderTi]

I want to try this. I may need a separate food processor or do it in the middle of the night. My second half isn’t as understanding as @Eatfrenchfries  

I’m curious to hear more. How often are you feeding this? Do you target or broadcast?

[Eatfrenchfries]

@LavenderTi 

Fed daily.

1 x Pollock Eggs (thaw, remove eggs from ovary, agitate with stirrer)

1 x Oyster blend (Blend and suspend in alginate)

1 x Clam shavings (Frozen then shaved)

 

 

The Oysters and Pollock eggs are ran through separate dosing heads in a mini fridge along with some phytoplankton. Something is dosed every 30min. 

Clam shavings I feed broadcast. Nothing is target fed unless it is a larger polyp nonphotosynthetic.

 

 

 

[Puck]

Definitely would be a fun monthly meeting topic in the future!

[Krux]

We need someone to invent a dosing pump that shaves clam on demand, finally I could keep a regal angel alive.

 

the process for the eggs belongs on r/brandnewsentence

 

i feel like Steve makes his own food, maybe he will share his recipe.  I have plans to eventually get a reef food fridge that includes a small freezer.  When that happens I will probably go that route, but I just can’t have that stuff in the fridge upstairs, the LRS smell already finds its way into the people food.

Awesome topic btw, thank you.

[islandVib3s]

i used to..still have some in my freezer lol..cheap small food processor and silicone micro ice trays on amazon 

[sherb]

I used to feed fresh local seafood too... We definitely live in a place of abundance if you want to go that way. I would definitely avoid anything frozen from the market - you just don't know what's going in there.

+1 on the small silicone ice cube trays. Amazon has tiny 1cm cubes - you're basically making your own Marine Cuisine. Simply grind or chop your seafood up, smear it over the trays and freeze, then use as you need. Also, thrift for a used food processor. You should be able to find one for $5 in decent shape.

I run a relatively small tank, so cost isn't much of a concern. I was looking more for beneficial microbes - "probiotics" for your reef tank if you want to look at it that way. But early on I ran into crazy high phosphate levels so I switched to frozen mysis. I'm not sure if the homemade food was really the culprit, but the tank is fine now and I never went back. I needed an excuse to visit my LFS anyway.

[Pdxreefer]

Yes! I’m interested in learning how to do this. LRS food is expensive long term. 

[Eatfrenchfries]

Raising the gold standard for homemade reef food. 

 

 

[Kerbash]

I usually just buy unshelled boiled shrimp. The shrimp meat for the bigger fish and the nems/LPS. The shrimp eggs for smaller fish and smaller LSP, the shrimp paste??? (idk what it is but its in the head part) is super fine like a paste and use it as reef roid 😂

[LavenderTi]

And here I was looking at the Trader Joe’s seafood blend.