[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Index by Month]

Re: Anyone making there own frozen foods?

I am scared of cheap cat foods, they have weird nasty chemicals sometimes. Stay away from any with ethoxyquin (sp?) if you can, I have seen many articles on it as a fertility destroying, hair removing, urinary tract impacting, allergy causing, carcinogenic toxin/preservative used in unstable 4D meat byproducts. It's in most flake foods too, I haven't yet found a brand that doesn't use it. Nasty stuff, very bad, also indicates that the ingredients used in the food were pretty near rotten when purchased by the manufacturers. Most pet food a few years ago had it, the dog and cat breeders made a big stink, now it's been mostly phased out but still appears in bird and fish foods. Course the person who told me that and showed me tons of literature on it still has dogs and cats with tumors, urinary tract disorders and hair loss despite using the organic preservative free high grade pet foods. I make my fish food too, but don't have a real recipe. It's about a third a pound of white fish (dover sold good, cheapo frozen stringy stuff bad) 1/4 lb shrimp with shells removed, 1/4 lb scallops. One jar green veggie baby food, one jar orange veggie baby food, soy protein isolate, spirulina, bird vitamins (have a lot of these) a squirt or two of HUFA supplements, some powdered houseflies... ok this job isn't for everyone. Yeah, I said powdered houseflies, you can buy them on the internet. You can buy ANYTHING on the internet if you look hard enough. It's sold for wildlife rehabbers and zoos, and bird and fish breeders. They are "organic vegetarian" powdered dried flies. MMM. fold this ingredient in carefully so it doesn't explode into a cloud when the blender hits it :) I put it all in the blender starting with the wet stuff and then I dissolve 3 packets of gelatin as it says on the package and toss that in the blender. Pour it on a cookie sheet, spread flat, chill in the fridge a few minutes so it sets. Score with a knife and stick in the freezer. When frozen break into ziploc bag size chunks. To serve I thaw a few squares in a cup of water, squish them with a fork, and use a pipette to suck up little bits of it and target feed the fish. Small baster also works. Some people drop the frozen stuff in their tanks and let the fish pick at it but most of my fish like to chase stuff rather than pick at boring white mush on the bottom of the tank. They especially enjoy chasing it down after I drop it in the outflow of the filter. Next time I will write down the recipe. It's not a really etched in stone deal. The veggie baby food is hopefully organic sugar free stuff, the green kind should have spinach, peas, beans, that sort of thing. The red one is sweet potato and carrots if I can find it, they have lots of potential for bringout the warm colors in fish. 
Kate

Fly powder:
http://www.wildbirdsuet.com/muscadomestica.html
I actually use "soya musca" which has the spirulina, soy protein, fly powder and ground oystershell all in one. 


matt kaufman wrote:


A couple comments.
1) there's 'cocktail' ice trays that are little, well, the ice cubes look a bit like the heads of bullets when they come out. Work great. Check out a dollar store.
Frozen egg crate? Somehow I don't believe it'll be flexible enough and that stuff's nasty when it breaks.
2) The originator of the thread hasn't ever made his own paste foods. I've done this for years, here's my observations: 1) beefheart-based mixes require a lot of work. Beef hearts are *huge* and some can be really veiny, so you need to cut them up a lot. The food really fattens up fish. For some reason, the discusophiles think beefheart is gods gift to fishkeeping, you can make many kinds of paste food that work well without dealing with the mess of beefheart. One discus breeder friend of my, Bing Seto, uses liver. Beef hearts can be hard to get from the grocery, too ,there's not a huge demand. Never mind the mess the uneaten stuff makes of the tank. It's important to know what fish you're feeding when you make your mix. You don't want to feed meaty foods to, say, algae-eating catfish or small, delicate insectivorous fish like tetras - they'll get fatty liver disease pretty easily.
Personally, in my opinion, beefheart's a waste of time. I've tried it on cichlids, killies, tetras, catfish, they'll eat it certainly but its not worth the hassle to obtain and prepare. I think the discusophiles use it because either Wattley or Schmidt-Focke used it in the old days and ergo that made it good. Discus aren't pirhana - how many wild discus have ever tasted beef? 2) Here's my lazy-man paste food recipe that's worked for me for years, everything eats it and its not so messy when it is uneaten plus the fish don't seem to suffer from fatty liver disease afterwards: I use the cheapest possible fish-based cat food I can find. 9 lives Tuna works well. 1 6.5 oz can of tuna, a large jar of baby food peas and another of carrots, plus 4 envelopes knox gelatin. Mix everything together except the gelatin. Follow the recipe on the gelatin box, prepare the gelatin (basically, microwave it with some water), mix in the food, and then put into a gallon freezer bag. Works like a charm. Sometimes, I add random cans of flaked food (like if I got extras at an auction) and once I had some fish vitamins, though I doubt fish vitamins, no expiration date. I don't add beta carotene or paprika or whatever, mostly because if I plan to give/sell the fish, I'd like them to look the same when the buyer gets them home as when I deliver them, beta-carotene induced color tends to fade. 

/rant

Matt
PS
Some guy was selling paste food at the WCW in April. I bought some, fish seemed to like it but it wasn't the best fish food I've ever found. 
PPS
The original thread said "Since its summer, I don't want to do live food." Why not? Live food is good any time of year, and it seems like everyone out here has a daphnia pond :-) 







From: rick-rose@comcast.net
Reply-To: gsas-member@thekrib.com
To: gsas-member@thekrib.com
Subject: Re: Anyone making there own frozen foods?
Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 22:09:00 +0000

What an EXCELLENT idea!

- Rick
> You could press the food into a fluorescent lighting grid (egg crate) to 
> form the food into small cubes.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Holly" <holly@ourglasshouse.com>
> To: <gsas-member@thekrib.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 2:18 PM
> Subject: RE: Anyone making there own frozen foods?
>
>
> > Me too, that sounds like a tasty fishy meal!
> >
> > How if only they made ice cube trays with very small cubes like the
> > mini-blocks you can buy of frozen fish food from the lfs. I would love to 
> > make my own pre-measured cubes.
> >
> > Holly ~
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-gsas-member@thekrib.com [mailto:owner-gsas-member@thekrib.com] 
> > On Behalf Of Tony
> > Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 2:04 PM
> > To: gsas-member@thekrib.com
> > Subject: Re: Anyone making there own frozen foods?
> >
> >
> > Hi Paul
> >
> > This sounds like a great recipe any measurement on the supplements? Also 
> > does shirmp work as a binder? I've heard of using gelatin(clear,
> unflavored)
> > as a binder. Ever try that...This seems like a nice simple sweet recipe, 
> I'm
> > gonna try this. Thanks Tony
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > From: "Paul Winchester" <bravo454@hotmail.com>
> > To: <gsas-member@thekrib.com>
> > Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 1:57 PM
> > Subject: RE: Anyone making there own frozen foods?
> >
> >
> > > I make a forzen beefheart mix for my discus. I start with whole
> > > beefhearts and trim any fat. The cut it into smaller cubes which I
> > > further chop up in
> > a
> > > blender. Add approximately 20% shimp and/or fish for a binder, also > > > "blended". Then mix in chopped fresh garlic, forzen spinich, vitamin B > > > and calcium ( in powdered form from capsules), spirulina and paprika 
> > > for color enhancement.
> > >
> > > Mix it all up in a bowl and put mix in 1 gallon freezer bags so they 
> > > are about 1/4 thick when laid flat then freeze it.
> > >
> > > To serve the fish I slice off a piece and chop it into bit sized
> > > pieces.
> > >
> > > Paul
> > >
> > >
> > > >From: "Tony" <Loxxxo@comcast.net>
> > > >Reply-To: gsas-member@thekrib.com
> > > >To: <gsas-member@thekrib.com>
> > > >Subject: Anyone making there own frozen foods?
> > > >Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 13:45:15 -0700
> > > >
> > > >Since the summer is here I usually try to stay away from live foods 
> > > >for some of my fish. So I was thinking about a recipe for my own
> > > >frozen food, for example beefheart, shrimp cubes. Does anyone have a 
> > > >recipe of there own
> > or
> > > >better question does anyone make there own frozen meals? Tony
> > > >
> > > > ------------------
> > > > To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to
> > majordomo@thekrib.com
> > > > with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message.
> > > > Archives of this list can be found at
> > > > http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/
> > > >
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > MSN 9 Dial-up Internet Access fights spam and pop-ups - now 3 months 
> > > FREE! http://join.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200361ave/direct/01/
> > >
> > > ------------------
> > > To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to
> > > majordomo@thekrib.com with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of 
> > > the message. Archives of this list can be found at
> > > http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/
> > >
> >
> > ------------------
> > To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com > > with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message. Archives of 
> > this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------
> > To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com > > with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message. Archives of 
> > this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/
> >
>
> ------------------
> To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com 
> with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message. Archives of
> this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/
>
------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com
with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message. Archives of
this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/



_________________________________________________________________
MSN Toolbar provides one-click access to Hotmail from any Web page – FREE download! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200413ave/direct/01/ 

------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com
with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message. Archives of
this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/



------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com
with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message.  Archives of
this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/

[The Krib] [AGA] [Aquaria FAQ] [GSAS]