My food recipe

Hi, there was a bit of discussion recently about DIY recipes, so thought I'd add my two cents. I just started to make my own food in the last while and can't even try give my picky beggars anything but this anymore. It's based on the recipe I found in one of Jack Wattley's books on discus-

1 Ox heart
Full bag of baby Spinach
2 Bananas (Wattley swears by them)
1/2 bulb garlic- give or take 6 cloves
1 Courgette
[edit] 1 Pack mixed shellfish (mussels, shrimp etc. squid usually included in these packs)
6-8 Multi-Vitamin tablets, finely crushed (as mentioned, drops would do just as well, but I already had these)

The above ingredients are blended together with a hand blender- the first one I tried in bowl blender just turned to a messy paste, so find hand blender gives a nicer consistency.
Unflavoured gelatin can now be added to this and then popped in freezer to be cut up into small chunks.
However, I went for a slightly different route. To get it to stick together, I put in 6 full eggs (including crushed up shell- meant to be great source of calcium) and popped into an oven at 125 for about 25 mins. You don't want to cook the meat, just get the egg to harden and the juices to flow out. This was then popped in the fridge for a few hours to harden. I then used a knife to score a chessboard pattern on top to make the dividing up easier later. Finally, it's popped into the freezer overnight, then chopped into chunks and put in zip-lock bags. A chunk is taken out and left in fridge once a week and I can't even consider putting flake near the tank anymore!
Is there anything else anyone adds to their mix I could try next time? Would like to continue experimenting.
Thanks,
Lorcan

Looks like a good recipie mate. Thx for taking the time to share it. What are you feeding? Discus as mentioned or something else? Plenty of protein in there with the eggs added as opposed to the gelatin so that gets a big thumbs up from me for what its worth, an excellent alternative.

Jay

Make sure when u throw the food into the tank that u give an oul Ainsley shuffle.

Nice recipe dude.

Mick......

i'd throw in some prawns, muscles etc etc... my fish love prawn it brings out lovely colours. the veg list is endless mix it up a little

Hi,
thanks for sharing.Ingredients look fine only the ox heart wouldnt be my thing to use.I would replace it with fish,mussels and shrimps.Just keep an eye on your water with that kind of food.Let us know how u got on with the eggs.Never used them befor(only gelatin)
Regards,Tim

dar wrote:

i'd throw in some prawns, muscles etc etc... my fish love prawn it brings out lovely colours. the veg list is endless mix it up a little

All types of fish or specific to some ?

Would you want to keep an eye on the water quality with those eggs? I know the yolk boiled is a great when crumbled for fry,however it pollutes the water something awful.

Gavin

Forgot to mention, I do put a heap of mussels, prawns, squid into it too. The Dunnes frozen seafood mix is primarily shellfish, so bought one of those and blended it through. The Ox heart seems to be the standard base for Discus food that I found in Wattleys Pro Discus book, so should be more than adaquate for my setup. One thing I will mention is to cut off all the fat before using it, leaving just lovely muscle. Fat on red meat is meant to be avoided for most fish. The above ingredients, costing about €12, will fill a large oven roasting tray to about an inch. For the fish I have it will last months. It is currently being feed to discus, rams, angels, BGK, who love it. Tried it in my Shellie tank recently, thinking that they wouldn't eat it quick enough to feed adequately, but they devoured it too- just have to add it slower, so the Multies come out of their shells before the Occies get it all or it floats under a rock.
I have had no problem with the eggs so far concerning the water quality, but have been keeping an eye on it. However, I'm a maniac for the water changes. I'm trying to grow out a number of juvenile discus in the tank, so feed relatively heavily. Water is kept crystal with 30% water changes every 2-3 days, as per Wattleys advice.
Thanks for the feedback,
L

Im thinking of making a mix for my pleco.Just wondering does this sink as a chunk when soaked or just dissolve into the water

As it is, it will break up as it sinks, so more for middle-water feeding fish. You could quite easily make a different recipe and use gelatin to hold it together for longer. However, for a pleco I'd also change the balance of protein vs veg. My Bristlenoses love the mix, but I'll usually drop a cucumber or pea in for them at same time.

Xaribdis wrote:

Hi, there was a bit of discussion recently about DIY recipes,
1 Ox heart Thanks,
Lorcan

The animal saturated fax is in liquid form at mammal normal body temperature 37C lucky it does not clog up the Discus system when there is a failure of the heater (21-23C) or a when the rainy season in the wild when loads of cold rain water is pumped into the upper Amazons streams (21-23C for 2 or 3 days ) the Discus has evolved to eat beef heart as the Ox naturally live around discus haunts upper river plains and here is a picture to prove it. Hence Discus can eaily take a cold snap for 2 or 3 days without any darkeng of colour or does the fat give them a stroke.

Mooooove over.
I bet there are some better pictures showing them getting the ox out of the tree.

The recipe, Wattley's stuff was pretty good stuff. But the danger that seemed (not sure why or when) to come about was when such high mammal meat diets got taken out of the context and high-volume water changes were ingored and then, sin of all sins, the meaty part tended to be the bit that people focused on (with a notion that lots of beef heart is good).

I'm too lazy to make my own food stuffs up now, but I lowered the beef-heart content and increased vegetable matter somewhat for discus eg additional carrot. You need to balance spinach as it may have a negative effect on uptake of calcium.

I am of the opinion that you need quite massive and frequent water changes when feeding such foods to discus (I would change water daily...and quite a lot of it...when using the beef heart recipes). Growth rate can be quite incredible, but I'd still err on the side of caution with beef-heart and discus.

ian