Home Made Fish/Reef Food

[kerry]

I just made a new batch that my fish seem to enjoy the best so far. This is kind of close to SM's and others blend but with gelatin to keep it held to gather a bit.
I used a can each of peas, carrots, and about 3/4 pound of shrimp. I heated the veggies in the microwave for a few minutes while I peeled the shrimp. When done heating and peeling I added this to my blender and blended until smooth then I added the 2 small envelopes of gelatin (comes 4 to a box) and blended for a couple more minutes. Then I poured into three flat/shallow containers with lids and then put in the fridge over night to let the gelatin set-up. The other two containers I put into the freezer after they set-up to use later. This seems to be a big hit with my SW fish and the Reef animals seem to enjoy it as well seeing that it breaks down into smaller pieces that they can handle.
Just an update on this last mix of food. I was watching my dotty back (Pseudochromis porphyreus) eat this mix and was observing my mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus) also eating this. This is the only mandarin I have ever had that has not eaten anything but copods and the like. I was truly amazed by this act.
For a Fish Only or FW tank this mix could use a little less liquid or a little more gelatin as it separates very easily which is great for my SW/reef tanks but not the best in the FW cichlid tanks.

[Doompie]

How do the corals react on this food?
Are they extending their polyps more?

What I see from my corals currently is they don't extend there polyps very much, but they extend. I think the water is very rich so they don't need to extend allot. Think so because growth is just crazy..so was wondering if they would react on feeding..

Still the findings on the fish are impressive!

[kerry]

Here are some of my coral pics. You can see by these they are doing pretty good.

[attachment=0:2ysiuptx]2011-11-21_21-10-47_129fix.jpg[/attachment:2ysiuptx]
[attachment=1:2ysiuptx]2011-11-21_21-09-41_6fix.jpg[/attachment:2ysiuptx]
[attachment=2:2ysiuptx]2011-11-21_21-06-50_420fix.jpg[/attachment:2ysiuptx]

[kerry]

And here is another. Its much bigger now, maybe double in size and qty of polyps in about two months or so.
[attachment=0:373ziqmi]2011-11-21_21-11-38_941fix.jpg[/attachment:373ziqmi]

[SantaMonica]

That might be the case, not sure. I do know that when a polyp eats, it can't eat again for a while.

[Floyd R Turbo]

The DIY food mix we do for our reef club is a bit more complicated

Cod
Shrimp
Squid
Octopus
dry bay scallops (must be 'dry' or else loaded with P)
Blended oysters
Hikari: jumbo Krill, Spirulina Brine Shrimp, Bloodworms
Kent: Marine C, Carlic Extreme
Selcon
PE Mysis
Cyclopeeze
BRS Reef Chili
Coray Frenzy
Two Little Fishies: ZoPlan, PhytoPlan
New Life Spectrum pellets (2mm & 3mm)
unroasted sushi nori

Last batch I made was over 5 gallons, made over 80 bags 2x the size of Rod's food for $10 each (1/4 the price, pound for pound)

[kerry]

I have been also adding extras to mine as well, nothing like yours yet. I had though about cod because its cheap. I have also found that using spinach one time in place of peas made the mix float which is nice for my Fish but bad for the corals as the fish ate most of it first. So now I only use about a 1/4ish can of spinach and the food blows around A LOT more before sinking to the bottom as with out it. I use the krill to as I feed this to my Oscars in my FW tank as well and it helps with the orange/red colors they have. And you are right!!! Its much cheaper then buying and much better for the fish!!!