Home made fish food

[LCP136]

I've been looking a lot into marine fish's dietary needs and it seems like the best way to go is to do homemade food. Does anyone have a good recipe or a list of things to add into their diet to vary it from commercial food?

[charlie]

Try this article by Lee:
Feeding Marine Fish and Fish Nutrition

[FireEater]

I've been using Eric Borneman's recipe for a few years now with great results.

I make so much at one time is lasts for about a year and I share it with others. I modify it somewhat by adding more greens like spinach and lettuce and to make it tang friendly. I add extra ingredients of some of the things and make about 25 quart size flats each holding 2 cups of the food.

[Lucid]

I too have been wanting to make my own foods. Is spinach a good alt to macros? Also how you feel about dosing say one flat with vitamins and another not?

[FireEater]

I believe that fish will get their vitamins from the food source itself, just like we do.

Adding the vitamins to the mix is just a form of supplementing. The same thing we do when we take a multi-vitamin in the morning.

[charlie]

I know a few folks that add Selcon to all their food. Personally, I haven't ever added anything.

[LCP136]

what do people think about keeping a small patch of live macro in the tank. I had one for a while, and my coral beauty and yellow tang loved it. are there any downsides to doing this?

[kronos5]

Thanks for the article, I think that I may try this myself.

[charlie]

The only downside I see is the fact that if it doesn't get eaten, it may take root. If you have tried this before, and it worked, more power to you. I occasionally feed chaeto and caulerpa to my group, but i don't leave it in the display. JMHO

[LCP136]

I've heard about feeding table shrimp, clams, squid, silversides, salmon. Do most marine fish and crustaceans work as more variation to their diets?

[charlie]

I think if you cruise thru that artcle I linked to earlier, you should be able to find out what you want, I am not the fish nutrition guy around here. You may want to contact Lee about your questions also.

[Ninong]

I've heard about feeding table shrimp, clams, squid, silversides, salmon. Do most marine fish and crustaceans work as more variation to their diets?

No salmon! Only white-flesh marine fish.

[Ninong]

Eric Borneman's recipe is great but it will feed a heavily stocked 300-gal tank for months. You have a very small tank with only a few fish.

You can really find what you need for your current fish using commercial foods. If you feel energetic, you can make your own fish food (and coral food) but you can really find excellent commercial foods.

I have used Ocean Nutrition's products with excellent results. I found that my foxface rabbitfish absolutely loved their red algae and their green algae. The brown algae not so much. My flame angelfish and my coral beauty angelfish both ate the algae as well as one of my fairy wrasses. If you had a really large tank with lots of herbivores (which you don't), you could purchase (unseasoned) nori from an Asian market.

Use a so-called "lettuce clip" to hold the seaweed. You have one herbivore (your yellow tang) and one dwarf angel who will probably nibble a litte of the seaweed. Start with a single piece about 2"x2" and see how long it takes for that to be eaten up. You want it all to be gone within one to two hours. Don't use lettuce. In an emergency, you could use romaine lettuce but only if there is no other option. It's okay to feed broccoli occasionally -- in fact, it's a good idea. Soften the broccoli first either by freezing it or by blanching it in boiling water for a minute. Broccoli is a good antidote to HLLE in tangs.

Formula One is for carnivores and Formula Two is for herbivores. Both come in both frozen cubes and in flakes. I have used both Formula One and Two in both frozen and flakes. And I have used their Pygmy Angel frozen cubes. I have also used San Francisco Bay brand frozen mysis shrimp. Brine shrimp are not all that good unless they are gut-loaded.

I'm assuming you already know what each of your fish requires as far as diet is concerned. If not, post each fish and I can tell you what each of them eats. You can also check out fishbase for their natural diet. You will need to know their scientific names or a fishbase-acceptable common name.

If you really want to know exactly what you would need to include to make a homemade recipe customized for your exact current fish, we can do that, too. If necessary.



P.S. -- Charlie has already answered your question about the potential downfall to growing macroalgae in your reef tank but just out of curiosity, what exactly do you have in there? Which species of macroalgae are you growing? That way we can tell you what you're in for.

[Lucid]

Also a cheese grader works beautifully on frozen foods, like squid.