Homemade Tropical Fish Food

Cook up homemade food for your tropical fish.

Tropical fish have a varied diet from the common fish. Known to prefer real fish over pellets, feeding a tropical fish can tend to be very tedious. Constantly buying feeding fish can lead to a big expense over time. An alternative is making your own food for tropical fish using food and items you would normally purchase for your household. You also can make multiple portions that can last a long time if stored in the freezer.

Things You'll Need

• Large food processor
• Multivitamin tablets
• 1 pound of beef heart
• Handful of spinach leaves (no stems)
• 3 carrots
• Whole zucchini
• 1 pound of minnows (sold as bait)
• Medium-size cooking pot
• Stove
• 2 liters water
• Spoon
• 3 boxes of unflavored gelatin
• Medium-size bowl
• Sandwich-size plastic bags
• Refrigerator

Instructions

1. Grind the multivitamins into dust. Place up to seven multivitamin tablets into the food processor. Activate the processor, and allow it to crush the vitamins until they become very fine.

2. Remove the excess fat and connective tissue from the red meat of the beef heart. Place the beef into the food processor. Activate the processor again to grind the heart in combination with the multivitamin tablets.

3. Add the carrots, whole zucchini and spinach leaves into the mixture of beef hearts and vitamins. Activate the food processor to blend the vegetables. Add the minnows last. Activate the food processor once again. Process the food until it becomes a thick paste.

4. Transfer the mix from the food processor into the medium-size cooking pot. Place the pot on one of the stove's burners. Add a liter of water to the pot. Using the stove, turn the burner to medium heat. Bring the ingredients to a low boil, stirring occasionally with a spoon. Turn off the heat once the mixture has reached a boil, and let it cool down.

5. Create your gelatin mixture. Open all three boxes of gelatin and place it into a medium-size bowl. Add one liter of cool water into the mixture and stir until a consistent texture has been created.

6. Place the gelatin mixture from your bowl into the pot that contains the mixture from your food processor. Stir the mixtures together until they become one whole mix.

7. Refrigerate the mixture. Place the medium-size pot directly into the refrigerator. Allow the pot to stay in overnight so the mixture can form into a mold. If the pot cannot fit into the refrigerator, transfer the mixture into a smaller container first---like the bowl used to mix the gelatin, for example---and then place it into the fridge.

8. Create feeding-size portions. Remove the mixture from the refrigerator. Break up the gelatin mold into multiple bite-size pieces. Take out a couple pieces to feed to your fish immediately. Drop in one tablet for every three large (or four medium) fish. Place the rest of the pieces into several sandwich bags, and place them into the freezer for preservation. Remember to defrost the food before serving them to your tropical fish.

Tips & Warnings

• You may replace the minnow with other small feeding fish, as well. Shrimp, mosquito larvae and feeding goldfish are commonly fed to tropical fish and can easily be added or substituted into the mixture.

References

• Fish Lore: Fish Food For Dummies
• Aquatic Community: Fish Food: An Introduction
• Aquatic Community: Tropical Fish Food