4 replies to this topic

[strat guy]

Homemade fish food. Great for veggie loving fish.

1) Gather leftover veggies from your fridge. Especially healthy are carrots, cucumber, snow peas, broccoli. Stay away from celery, the strands don't blend well. Lettuce is pointless as it's mostly water and has little vitamins.
2) Throw them in the blender. Make sure it's not absolutely frappéd, but you don't want big chunks either.
3) Add a bag of peeled and de-tailed raw shrimp. This adds very beneficial non-fatty protein.
4) Put mixture in pot on the stove. Heat until it's just about to boil. If it's too dry, add a little water.
5) Add 1/2 packet of unsweetened, unflavored gelatin.
6) Cool for 3-4 hrs.
7) Cut into squares and refrigerate.

Only make as much as you need. If you've made too much, you can freeze it, but you'll have to reheat and add more gelatin. The gelatin doesn't hold up well in the freezer and your cubes will turn to mush when you thaw. This food is great for any vegetable loving fish, like Cyprinids. Mine love it, and go crazy during feeding time.

[Josh Blaylock]

This is a great idea, and I applaud you for taking it all the way.  I do something similar, but way more basic.  I squish peas and give to my fish, and I chop up frozen (pre-cooked) shrimp and add to their normal foods.

[Matt DeLaVega]

Sounds like a recipe that could work really well for SRBD. I have had little trouble keeping them in color, but I like live cultures as much as I do fish. This sounds perfect for those not feeding live for many species.

 

 I bet you could duplicate this with a dehydrator. Spread thin and dehydrate, or do something similar on a baking sheet in the oven on low. Spread the mix thin on a baking sheet. Keep low for as long as it would take for it to crisp up. Then do whatever works for you for storage. Break it down and freeze it.

[strat guy]

That's not a bad idea. I've wondered if there are recipes for making more nutritious flake foods, and a food dehydrator may be the way to go. I've considered boilies like the European guys use for carp fishing. That stuff is SUPER healthy. I make my boilies with all sorts of high quality grain and add fish oil and crunched up vitamins for nutrition, the carp can sense higher quality food and will give it preference. I just don't know how I would make it small enough, crumbling it may still be too large.

 

Here's what the food looks like:

 

 12249832_10153637315296597_5253353554753160531_n.jpg   97.52KB   1 downloads

[Matt DeLaVega]

Yeah, no Pavlovian response going on here, but looks like decent fish food.

 

 Have heard of boilies. Had not thought of upping the quality to attract carp. Makes sense. In a carp sense it is very similar to bigger bait catches bigger predatory fish. Higher net gain in calories or nutrition.