Food Mix

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Hi All
Is it safe to use Pick 'n Pay frozen sea foods to make a food mix? I have got shrimp, mussles and hake. Plan is it mix it all up in a blender and add Reef Plus, Marine Snow, some flakes, bits, entice, Guarlic Guard and sea veggies.
What you all think?
 
your best bet is to buy food premixed as your own stuff will have alot higher nutrient levels as your mixing it all up.
With prepacked marine food they take alot of the excess waste out, also a rule before you feed frozen food sieve it first to get rid of the "juice" alot of disolved nutrients in it really bad as most of the corals we keep arent big eaters.
A good use for the "juice" is to feed it to sun corals or dendronephtia they will go beserk for it. Just make sure you put the hungry buggers into a different feeding facilty for this purpose.
 
Sounds fine Sims, i often mix my own food, but like Tridan says get rid of the juice on any frozen food as it is pure nutrient albeit in very small doses.
 
it will be fine,i use the pic n pay prepacked stuff like shrimps,calamari,mussels...
 
Hi SIMS. I think that this question will be like nearly 95% of all other questions on this forum - you will get the answers that are pro "off-the-shelf" pre-manufactured food, and others that are pro self mixing your own food.

This is what I have noticed so far (I have been using PnP "Seafood Mix" and "Mussel meat" now for the past month and a bit). I have seen my fish go absolutely MAD for it, and have actually seen my coral polyps EAT when I put of this stuff in the tank, and target feed them. They seem to flourish with this home-made food mix. I forgot to add garlic, which I would have wanted to do as well - BUT I will do this with my next mix.

Using the "normal" mysis, artemia, daphnia, etc "blocks" from the LFS, I do not see the same responses from ANY of my life-stock. Yes, the fish still eat it, but my corals don't like it - not even if I crush it and reduce the size to fit the coral polyps sizes.....

So, until I can prove that this food-mix is somehow bad for my life-stock or aquarium (e.g. nutrient levels, etc), I will continue using it.

BTW: my nitrate levels have not gone up at all since I have started using this food mix...... And I feed the "juice" to my corals as well.....

Just my story - only time will tell if I should be doing something else....

I have reduced my feeding now to only in the evenings (taking it SLOWLY) from both mornings and evenings....
 
Ok I'll give it a bash - worst thing is that I send my Nitrates up but I'll keep a close tab. What is in the Mix....?

I started dosing Probidio so I'm hoping this will lower my nutrients to 0 and then I can keep my fish nice and fat....
 
:) Hi again SIMS.... I can only suggest that you try it. If it does not work for you, then stop doing it. If it works - continue.....

I personally use the "Pick and Pay Fresh Frozen Seafood Mix" and the "Pick and Pay fresh frozen Mussel Meat". I blend these 2 together, taking some RO water to make it nice and "mushy" in the blender. I blend it for +-30 minutes to get it mostly nice and fine. I end up with 90% pieces of between 0.5 and 1mm in size, +-5% of the mix being 1mm to 2mm in size, and about 2% being bigger than 2mm in size. With a lot of "juice" (pieces small than 0.5mm in size, and actual "juice" from the blending)..... The pieces are actual seafood meat, that was just frozen, without any other additives (as far as I can read on the packaging) which could cause problems in my tank.
 
@ Alan
We have Jaquesb's food mix, care to share yours? ( dont know how to spell recipy)
I learn something new every day from this site. Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Ok here is my food mix.

Hake, seafood mix (If it has crab sticks in I remove these), extra shrimps or prawns. spirulina flakes, garlic, vitamins (liquid). Mince the hake, seafood mix and shrimps. Add the spirulina flakes, garlic and vitamins. Mix well. Use a bit of gelatin to bind the solution. Flatten out in ziplock bags and freeze. Break off as required.

In my next lot I want to add fish roe and oysters. I will blend mince the larger stuff as before. Then take 30 % of the mixture, before adding garlic and vitamins, and blend that for an additional 15minutes. Mix this together again. Just to get some finer stuff to feed the corals as well.
 
heres my mix.shrimps,calamari,muscles,nori and garlic mixed up in a blender and placed into icetrays and then into the freezer.when its time to feed,defrost the block of food in a tea strainer and allow all the juice to come out,then into the tank.been lazy recently and havent fed frozen food in months
 
Guys stupid question but do I defrost the stuff first? I guess yes but you never know with this hobby - everything seems to be the hard way....
 
Would you enjoy eating frozen soup? :lol:

I used to toss the frozen clumps into the tank until I noticed how they bob along the top of the water and down the overflow :( now I defrost, turn all the pumps off and it slowly sinks in the water column.
 
whoops, sorry :blushing:

Yeah I defrost mine first.
 
:lol:

This might also be a stupid question, but does the food for human consumption not contain preservatives which could be bad? And does the frozen fish food also contain preservatives? I have never bothered to check so I'm curious.
 
Hi Galibore - no, usually frozen fish / seafood in general does NOT contain preservatives. Mostly only canned food stuffs.

Freshly frozen fish/seafood are usually "just as good" as the fish would get to eat out at sea.... :)

I can almost guarantee you that your local seafood distributor would not bother adding preservatives to any seafood they sell..... :)
 
Another question, at Pick 'n Pay, on the frozen seafood packets/containers, they have a sticker that says, "Maximum 20% glaze". What is that?
 
Glaze is (I believe filtered WATER) - frozen water..... they let the seafood (fish/seafood mix) lie in water to soak up - as this ensure that the meat freezes better, and stays frozen for longer....

They do the same with the frozen chicken pieces at e.g. Checkers / Pick-n-Pay....

This sometimes also increases the weight
 
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