R
ralf
Guest
Hello to all the „chefs“ out there,
after sending my family off for christmas-shopping, I was able to occupy our kitchen and do some „cooking“. As Ed already mentioned, self-made feeds, containing gelatine or Agar Agar are used widely in fish feeding. Main ingredients are either beefheart, fish or shrimp. I used similar feeds for my newts in the past and was asked to give recipes or approximate proportions of ingredients for recooking on this forum. Since I didn`t use a fixed recipe in the past and I also wanted to try Agar Agar instead of gelatine I had to do some experimenting. Here are the results. I used the following ingredients (frozen, except the last three):
130 g Pacific Salmon (Oncorhynchus keta),
12 g Mysis,
170 g Artemia (Brine Shrimp),
80 g Chironomid larvae (bloodworms),
2 teaspoons of Agar Agar (powder),
Vitamin and mineral supplement,
250 ml Water.
I cut the salmon into small cubes and minced it (until it was semi-liquid). I let the other frozen ingredients thaw in cold water, rinsed and discarded the thawing liquid. I mixed Salmon, Mysis, Artemia and bloodworms in a big bowl and „spiced it up“ with vitamin and mineral supplement.
I stirred the Agar Agar into a small amount of cold water and let the rest of the water boil. Then I put the Agar Agar solution into the hot water and let it boil for another two minutes. I then poured the hot Agar Agar into the other ingredients (while stirring constantly). At last, I poured out a thin layer of „newt-jello“ and let it cool down.
After cooling, I cut small strips and pieces and started my feeding trials. The feed turned out softer than I had expected, which required careful handling of the pieces when feeding with tweezers (proved to be advantageous for swallowing, on the other hand). The „hard“ bloodworms kind of hampered cutting, since they accumulate at the knife’s edge when running the blade through the mass (next time I will mince them also). I tested with several species, they accepted this food (e.g. T. verrucosus, see below) and also picked up pieces from the bottom. Cutting the strips, one has to consider though, that some species, despite of being relatively large, posess only small mouth openings and feed rather by suction than by biting, meaning: „don’t cut them too big“ (e.g. Pachyhynobius).
Freezing and thawing of this feed didn’t contribute to its quality, though. A lot of water cristallized in the freezer and the feed got a little more „crumbly“, although still usable as feed in form of bits and pieces. Next time I will probably use less additional water and more Agar Agar.
I hope I could at least give you an idea of opportunities with this kind of feed, which also allows additional protein sources (e.g. beefheart, fish), „spicing up“ with vitamins, minerals or color (via carotinoids of crustaceans or wild salmon, as in this case) or the use of „surplus animals“ from food organism cultures (e.g. plancton, crickets etc.). Don’t consider this a fixed recipe, but rather a basis for doing some experiments on your own, since this recipe still needs improvement.
Ralf
P.S.: Please excuse the quality of the photos.
after sending my family off for christmas-shopping, I was able to occupy our kitchen and do some „cooking“. As Ed already mentioned, self-made feeds, containing gelatine or Agar Agar are used widely in fish feeding. Main ingredients are either beefheart, fish or shrimp. I used similar feeds for my newts in the past and was asked to give recipes or approximate proportions of ingredients for recooking on this forum. Since I didn`t use a fixed recipe in the past and I also wanted to try Agar Agar instead of gelatine I had to do some experimenting. Here are the results. I used the following ingredients (frozen, except the last three):
130 g Pacific Salmon (Oncorhynchus keta),
12 g Mysis,
170 g Artemia (Brine Shrimp),
80 g Chironomid larvae (bloodworms),
2 teaspoons of Agar Agar (powder),
Vitamin and mineral supplement,
250 ml Water.
I cut the salmon into small cubes and minced it (until it was semi-liquid). I let the other frozen ingredients thaw in cold water, rinsed and discarded the thawing liquid. I mixed Salmon, Mysis, Artemia and bloodworms in a big bowl and „spiced it up“ with vitamin and mineral supplement.
I stirred the Agar Agar into a small amount of cold water and let the rest of the water boil. Then I put the Agar Agar solution into the hot water and let it boil for another two minutes. I then poured the hot Agar Agar into the other ingredients (while stirring constantly). At last, I poured out a thin layer of „newt-jello“ and let it cool down.
After cooling, I cut small strips and pieces and started my feeding trials. The feed turned out softer than I had expected, which required careful handling of the pieces when feeding with tweezers (proved to be advantageous for swallowing, on the other hand). The „hard“ bloodworms kind of hampered cutting, since they accumulate at the knife’s edge when running the blade through the mass (next time I will mince them also). I tested with several species, they accepted this food (e.g. T. verrucosus, see below) and also picked up pieces from the bottom. Cutting the strips, one has to consider though, that some species, despite of being relatively large, posess only small mouth openings and feed rather by suction than by biting, meaning: „don’t cut them too big“ (e.g. Pachyhynobius).
Freezing and thawing of this feed didn’t contribute to its quality, though. A lot of water cristallized in the freezer and the feed got a little more „crumbly“, although still usable as feed in form of bits and pieces. Next time I will probably use less additional water and more Agar Agar.
I hope I could at least give you an idea of opportunities with this kind of feed, which also allows additional protein sources (e.g. beefheart, fish), „spicing up“ with vitamins, minerals or color (via carotinoids of crustaceans or wild salmon, as in this case) or the use of „surplus animals“ from food organism cultures (e.g. plancton, crickets etc.). Don’t consider this a fixed recipe, but rather a basis for doing some experiments on your own, since this recipe still needs improvement.
Ralf
P.S.: Please excuse the quality of the photos.
