Possible cheap and good food??

[FreakinReefin]

I was just sitting at work reading some posts about different foods and thinking about how I should be working harder to afford the ginormous expense that accompanies the feeding of our marine kin and something occured to me. We(most of us at least) live in a great marine region in which we have some of the most unique and flourishing marine environments in the world. Thinking about some of the foods I use like "Oyster Feast" which smells like a bunch of oysters that have been blended to oblivion, I was thinking about possibly saving some cash and walking down to the beach near my house and picking some oysters, clams and mussels off the shoreline and using these to make my own food. Granted I know that Reef Nutrition has spent years trying to perfect their formulas and food like "Oyster Feast" is probably much more than blended oyster; but I'm thinking if I grab some oysters and blend them with some RO/DI and maybe a touch of some buffer it might be some pretty high quality food. Thoughts??

 

[menace78]

Buying these foods from the grocery store and doing this would be a good idea and alot of people do that.
I would not get any from the local beach due to posible polutents near the shoreline.
Most people even say If you want to use natural seawater you should harvest it miles from shore to lower the posablity of adding something that you don't want in the tank.
Not to mention posible addition of perasites or diseases.

 

[krisfal]

I have used razor clams from Moclips in my blender mash. To help prevent problems related to parasites you should freeze the clams etc to kill them off. Freezing and then partially thawing also makes them much easier to get out of the shell

BTW I believe the Oyster feast is just the eggs and ovaries from the oysters. They are the ideal size for coral ingestion. I have put thawed whole oysters in the blender before but just end up with a liquid goo which I felt would foul the water more than it would feed the fish or coral. I have also chopped up frozen oyster meat and added to my blender mash that worked pretty good.

I would say your plan is doable if you collect from a clean beach (away from the industrial areas) and freeze to kill off any parasites.

 

[FreakinReefin]

I have used razor clams from Moclips in my blender mash. To help prevent problems related to parasites you should freeze the clams etc to kill them off. Freezing and then partially thawing also makes them much easier to get out of the shell

BTW I believe the Oyster feast is just the eggs and ovaries from the oysters. They are the ideal size for coral ingestion. I have put thawed whole oysters in the blender before but just end up with a liquid goo which I felt would foul the water more than it would feed the fish or coral. I have also chopped up frozen oyster meat and added to my blender mash that worked pretty good.

I would say your plan is doable if you collect from a clean beach (away from the industrial areas) and freeze to kill off any parasites.

Huh...How the heck do you get the eggs and ovarian tissue from an oyster? I've eaten a LOT of oysters in my time and now I feel bad for not checking to see if they were knocked up!

Freezing is an excellent point, I will do that!

 

[krisfal]

Huh...How the heck do you get the eggs and ovarian tissue from an oyster?

I do not know the answer to that. Randy Reed came and talked about his products at a PSAS meeting last year and the Oyster Feast was new at that time so he talk quite a bit about what it was made of and why it was the perfect food for coral, if he explained how they did it I do not recall.

 

[nsamouroux]

I visit the live seafood and oriental markets (H-Mart in Federal Way especially) and pick up a few lbs each of crab, shrimp, mussels, salmon, salmon eggs if I can find any without additives, cod, oyster, etc and then add a bunch of shredded / dried nori. I mix in a good amount of garlic and then water it all down with some RO/DI and blend it all together. Makes a huge mess of the kitchen and smells like arse. I then pour the goop into a few dozen ice cube trays with clear plastic lids bought from H-Mart (72 half-inch square cubes per tray) and stack it all in the freezer.

I've been feeding this mix for 2 years now with no problems (no phosphates, nitrates, testable pollutants, etc). Even my large tangs love the stuff and have learned to recognize the container that I keep the cubes in. They go absolutely batty when I walk near the tank with that food tub :lol:. I still buy coral food and whatnot (phyto-feast, etc) for the corals and the feather dusters / clams because I didn't think it would work if I added that to the food cubes. I also still keep a veggie-clip of nori in the tank for the tangs because I don't know if they get enough solely from what I added to the food mix.

EDIT: Forgot to add... One batch of fish food lasts me about 6 months. I store it in a chest freezer down in the basement. I'm sure I could keep a year or more worth of it on hand, but didn't want to end up wasting it if it happened to go bad. I haven't noticed any preservation issues over a 6-month span as long as it is frozen and it still looks fine when I thaw out the cubes in a cup of RO/DI water before feeding.