Do you cringe at the thought of buying the frozen fish cubes at the LFS that cost $5.00 for 2-3 ounces like I do? Do you hate having to keep 3-4 different types of frozen preparations on hand to give you fish a varied and nutritious diet? Then why not make your own? It’s really simple to do and takes very little in the way of equipment. Additionally it’s way cheaper too!

What do you put in DIY food anyways? Well that’s a good question! To be honest the ingredients are about as unlimited as your imagination. The local Grocery Store or Fish Market can be a cornucopia of ideas and ingredients. Some of my personal favorites are Squid, Cod Fillets, Halibut Fillets, Shrimp, Crab, Clams and Sea Weed just to name a few. The one thing you want to keep in mind is to use raw and uncooked or otherwise processed or preserved items, avoiding things like smoked fish or pickled fish.

I also like to add supplements to boost the nutritional content of my homemade foods too. Some of the things I add are SeaChem’s Amino Acid and Vitamin Supplement. If preparing food for my corals I will also add some Phyto-Plankton or Zooplankton as well.

Equipment need…I use a small blender, much like the one commonly used to chop an onion or Garlic or some other small item. It generally holds about 6-8 ounces at a whack. You can pick these up at the appliance store for just a few meager bucks. The next item you will need is some Heavy Duty Zip Lock Freezer bags. I usually use the small sandwich sized bags.

Now for some of my favorite combinations…

Fish Food
½ lbs Halibut Fillet
½ lbs Red Snapper Fillet
1 lbs Shrimp
½ lbs Scallops, Clams, Oysters or Muscles

Dice up the fillets into 1 inch cubes. Add the courses fish pieces first, in this case, the Red Snapper. Hit the button on the blender using short burst of chopping blades. Then add the shrimp. Blend again using the same technique. Then add the Halibut Fillets that have been diced up and blend again using the same technique. At this point you will want to add the vitamin supplements if any followed by the delicate shellfish flesh. At this point just a short burst or two from the blender should finish things up. If the fish are really small blend the mixture longer to chop it finer. For larger Zooplankton eaters, you will blend the mix less making it much more course in texture.

This should result in about 2 ½ lbs of quality fish food. Next taking one of the Freezer bags, add a couple of healthy spoon fulls into it and then seal the bag almost completely up. Laying the bag on a flat surface, gently press it smoothing the mixture out evenly to fill the freezer bag up creating a thin flat and expel any air. Once this is done, seal the bag up and place in the freezer. When its time to feed your fish break off a suitable sized piece for the occasion and thaw it out and then add to the tank and watch your fish go crazy in a feeding frenzy.

Irregardless of the ingredients used always grind the coarsest and toughest items first. With a little practice you will get really good at judging just how much blending each ingredient needs to keep it all pretty much uniform in size. If you have any herbivores such as Dwarf Angels or Tangs adding some shredded dried seaweed called Nori, which is often used in Asian style foods, or some fresh seaweed from the local market will greatly benefit these fish. If you want to prepare this food for corals then use finer delicate cuts of fish and thoroughly blend until its is a fine paste as far as consistency goes.

At any rate, give it a try. You might find that you and your fish like the results! In the meantime, Good Luck and Happy Reefing!

I've heard of people adding unflavored jelatin to the mix to hold it together, and freezing it in ice cube trays then transfering it to ziplocks.

I have done this with veggies also for my fishies and snails.....

Good information, I'm pinning this in hopes of getting more recepies.