# Homemade Fish Food!



## Oldfishlady

If I put this in the wrong place please move it, I could not find a food related area...lol
I have been asked about my recipe..so here it is.......

I use only human grade items and amounts vary depending on how much you want to make, I make large amount and freeze it.
1-2 Fresh raw or cooked shrimp
3-6 fresh spinach leaves...depends if you use baby spinach or frozen, either will work
2-4 fresh garlic cloves

I use a garlic press and crush the garlic and blanch the spinach so it is warm and wilted and use a fork or side of a knife to smash these two together and make a green garlic paste and I chop the shrimp and smash the green garlic paste all together so you have a "green garlic shrimp paste". I place this in a zip lock bag and smash flat and freeze to make it easier to break off what I need to feed.
You can vary 2 items to what you have, you can use peas instead of spinach and fish instead of shrimp, but use only fresh garlic.
I feed this nearly every day and my fish love it and the garlic helps with any parasite too, I keep wild caught species too that tend to carry flukes, worms etc....and I rarely if ever have any issues and I feel it is from the garlic as well as QT'ing...lol..


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## bloo97

Is It safe?
Have you tried it?


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## xxabc

I'm not a cook, so I don't know what blanching a spinach is. But I'm definitely going to try this someday. I know my bettas love garlic, let's see how they like the others (and the chances of putting them with shrimp just died, lol). I... am probably not gonna use fish for a reason, lol. But very nice, I'm going to try this asap.


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## xxabc

bloo97 said:


> Is It safe?
> Have you tried it?


She said that people have asked her for the recipe, so I'm gonna go ahead and say yes...


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## aunt kymmie

Very safe, I assure you!


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## Mean Harri

Read the last sentence. It says she feeds it every day. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's safe. Just guessing but I think that's what it means.

Thanks oldfishlady.


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## Mean Harri

accidently thanked kym. just saw remove thanks lol. carry on.

edit:


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## dramaqueen

Sounds like a great recipe. I don't even cook for myself though, much less my fish. lol


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## Angel079

Awesome!! We can start a cooking section for our fish 

I have to admit after the other post from Mean Harri I remembered having pre-cooked shrimp for hubby in the freezer; so I went defrost, cut it up and started feeding - Mind you I am vegetarian myself and know very lil about sushi, shrimp etc- 
I used these larger ~1.5" Shrimp and cut them up (what I thought was small) and I used 4 (FOUR!) of them cause I have 3 tanks to feed right!? Wrong LOL wayyyy too much shrimp and next time I'll mix up a batch via food processor and just use ice cube tray's to freeze it!

Have to say even the fish that normally are picky eater (Emporer, Pleco, Cory) they are having a PARTY in the tanks here right now thanks to you!!!!! Spc my Corys & Emporers are going nuts over it; The Rummy's still aren't sure what to think of it


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## aunt kymmie

They are going nuts for precooked shrimp, just the shrimp, all by itself? It never occured to me to feed that to my fish. Huh, learn something new everyday!


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## Mean Harri

You bad bad vegetarian. You touched meat. How dare you. I skorn your actions. 
Why not? THey eat brine shrimp. That's what? Tiny tiny salt loving freak shrimp.


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## Oldfishlady

I feed this to all my fish 6 days a week 1-3 times a day depending who and why (1 day of fast) for the past 10 years, even the red and yellow shrimp love it...lol....the marbled crayfish got nuts for it......

Blanch-means I drop the spinach in boiling water for a second or less and then remove, you don't want to over cook the spinach but you want it to just wilt and be warm enough that when you drop it on the fresh crushed garlic you get a slight garlic smell then I add the chopped shrimp and smash it all together.

Amount vary as I do this by eye more than anything, I grow my own garlic ans spinach and buy the shrimp from wally world the Xlarge raw and I add at least one of the tail shells for the added calcium, you can also add the infant vitamin drops for added B, C, D vit that are really good if you are fighting flexobacteria or Fish TB as well as other malidies........


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## Mean Harri

Oh, you leave the shrimp raw? I got frozen precooked. Oh well. They'll eat it. I'll force them lol


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## dramaqueen

Don't forget the cocktail sauce.


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## Oldfishlady

I use both the raw and the pre cooked and both are fine, I don't think it makes a dimes worth of difference to be honest.....I have read that raw can contain nasties but I have never had any problems with raw and health issues and the pre cooked can have lost vitamins and minerals.... but again I don't think it is enough of a difference to matter...it is more a choice and the fish don't care...lol.......


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## Angel079

aunt kymmie said:


> They are going nuts for precooked shrimp, just the shrimp, all by itself? It never occured to me to feed that to my fish. Huh, learn something new everyday!


Yup works wonders; hubby used to eat a bunch of these mini-shrimp back in the day (whatever they're called I donno) and my fish loved these too and the big one's just tonight as well (I just REALLY over fed them 2nite lol)



Oldfishlady said:


> Amount vary as I do this by eye more than anything, I grow my own garlic ans spinach and buy the shrimp from wally world the Xlarge raw and I add at least one of the tail shells for the added calcium, you can also add the infant vitamin drops for added B, C, D vit that are really good if you are fighting flexobacteria or Fish TB as well as other malidies........


Have you actually ever tried this baby-food in the lil glasses? I had read several folks suggesting that stuff for fish as well but it seemed so soupy to my non-motherly eyes for my fish??? That would have a bunch good vitamins too right?


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## Oldfishlady

I have never used/fed baby food in the jars for fish food....but I do use the infant vitamin drops and have never had a problem, but I use only 1-2 drops for a complete recipe and many years ago I used them directly in the tank when I had a flexobacteria out break for the vit A BCD, they are high in Iron but it is different than the iron that is for plants and I don't think plants utilize that iron.... but the fish could.... at least I would think they could..it didn't hurt anyway...lol...and I saved a few of the fish, I use it more for the ABCD vitamins with sick fish or the wild caught fish I collect while in QT.


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## Mean Harri

I just made up my mixture. Wow when you blanch spinach. What is a nice pile becomes a tiny little pile. I pressed the garlic and tried food processoring the mix. It was a small enough batch that it didn't puree well. I mashed with a fork. Meh. The spinach is in pieces bigger than I would prefer. I wanted to test feed before freezing so I did. HOLY cow... they went nuts. The spinach they ate but the shrimp. Little sharks I tell ya. They went bananas for the shrimp. I think as a treat I may try just shrimp and garlic. What a sight watching them hog the shrimp. Thanks for this oldfishlady. It was fun to watch.


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## Angel079

Eric you may have better luck using the 2cup sized small food processors I use them making salsa and stuff and works pretty nicely to chop up lil portions like this stuff.


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## Mean Harri

I see what I did wrong. I just reread the recipe. 1-2 shrimp and 3-6 spinach leaves. lol
I did 4 shrimp and about half a bag of spinach. :shock:


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## Angel079

Mean Harri said:


> I see what I did wrong. I just reread the recipe. 1-2 shrimp and 3-6 spinach leaves. lol
> I did 4 shrimp and about half a bag of spinach. :shock:


HOLY COW either you are seriously MTS infested now or added a whollleeeee lot to your stock since we last spoke you can feed the whole LFS with that mixture :shock::shock::shock:


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## Mean Harri

Whoops. I figured it'll keep frozen. I'll try again tomorrow.


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## dramaqueen

That's enough food for a whole ocean of fish. lol Or at least a lake.


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## Oldfishlady

I don't puree mine, I like some little chunks, I use the side of a steak knife and smash and roll it around on a cutting board, I do feed some just as soon as I make it, the cats seem to love the chunks of garlic and sometime I will just blanch some spinach and garlic and drop the whole spinach and garlic pieces in the tank and the guppies, ottos, pleco, cats go nuts for it and feed off of it all day with gusto...


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## xxabc

Wow missed a whole convo 

Again, thanks for this  

So for ratio (I go strictly by instruction at first tries, lol) I should do:

1 Shrimp : 3 Spinach Leaves : 2 Garlic gloves? 

Ohhh I'm so excited, something I can actually maintain! I just have to steal some of my own food  
Thank you~ 

I'll try feeding this with the future snails when I get them.


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## LisaC144

When you freeze this recipe, do you defrost it before feeding or just cut a small chunk off and drop it in? I would think it being frozen wouldn't be good for them....yes? No?


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## iamntbatman

Would it work if I replaced the spinach with basil, the shrimp with toasted pine nuts and added a little olive oil and freshly grated parmigiano cheese?


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## Angel079

iamntbatman said:


> Would it work if I replaced the spinach with basil, the shrimp with toasted pine nuts and added a little olive oil and freshly grated parmigiano cheese?


:rofl:Isn't that a lil more human cooking then necessary for fish? :lol:


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## Oldfishlady

When I freeze mine I smash it pretty flat and I break off what I need and use my trusty knife and give it a smash or two on a paper plate and it usually adheres to the knife and I stick the knife in the tank and swish it around so the food fall off. It is so thin that I really don't thaw it per se' and the re-smashing kinda thaws it in a way too.
With my bettas I use the tip of the knife to feed, I will gather a small amount on the tip after I re-smash on the paper plate and give the feeding tap and put the knife tip with food in front of my betta and they will eat if off the knife.


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## Mean Harri

Oldfishlady said:


> When I freeze mine I smash it pretty flat and I break off what I need and use my trusty knife and give it a smash or two on a paper plate and it usually adheres to the knife and I stick the knife in the tank and swish it around so the food fall off. It is so thin that I really don't thaw it per se' and the re-smashing kinda thaws it in a way too.
> With my bettas I use the tip of the knife to feed, I will gather a small amount on the tip after I re-smash on the paper plate and give the feeding tap and put the knife tip with food in front of my betta and they will eat if off the knife.



ssssssssssssshhhhhh. You'll have threads starting. "Help, I sliced my fishes face off with a knife tip". 
Lol I had to say it. sorry.


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## Angel079

I was just fixing to say 'watch out the advise you write down' some ppl have NO common sense and will indeed cut their fish up that way


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## aunt kymmie

Angel079 said:


> I was just fixing to say 'watch out the advise you write down' some ppl have NO common sense and will indeed cut their fish up that way


As in me licking peanut butter off of the sharp end of a knife. Ouch, and to think I thought I had common sense, lol. Won't do that again!


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## iamntbatman

Angel079 said:


> :rofl:Isn't that a lil more human cooking then necessary for fish? :lol:


Sorry, but the thread was making me hungry and the recipe was just a few steps away from being pesto. Mmmm....pesto.


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## Oldfishlady

Angel079 said:


> I was just fixing to say 'watch out the advise you write down' some ppl have NO common sense and will indeed cut their fish up that way


Have you ever read "Common sense" Obituary....pretty funny and sadly true......

I will look for it and post it if you want to read it...I have never looked for it on the internet, it is a hard copy from the paper that I have.


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## pretzelsz

I jst made this with 3 cloves of garlic, some lettuce (about = to 6-8 of what the recipe called for) 3 thin slice zucchini. Is that ok?


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## Oldfishlady

Gosh, I don't see why not as long as the fish like it, I have tried all sorts of different things, but the main thing I use in any of the foods I make for fish is "garlic" I even chopped up some fresh red worms and garlic then smashed and frozen, blanched kale and garlic, when I blanch my squash I use garlic in the water and drop the garlic along with the squash in the tank, there is never left to take out.

We had a massive amount of mosquito larva last year so I started to gather and freeze them, I plan to add these frozen skeeters to a mix, I have not tried it yet and I don't know how freezing affect the nutrition value of skeeters...but I do know they love frozen skeeter when I grate them over the tank with an old box grater, they like the live ones best, but due to being seasonal I thought I would give freezing them a try.


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## redchigh

I would imagine that you could treat the skeeters the same as shrimp...

ie they wouldn't love any more vitamins than the shrimp already are.Maybe look up the process for freezing brine shrimp and use it.

Someone with a snail infestation could probably use the snails instead of shrimp...
kinda gross to cut up though.


Speaking of gross-
I may make this with earthworm.... (they're cheaper than shrimp since I never have shrimp in the house.)

on a diferent topic, how do you grow garlic? I always imagined it would be kinda useless- plant 1 clove of garlic to grow one clove of garlic?


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## Oldfishlady

To grow garlic is like a having a baby..it take nine months...plant in the fall, harvest in the spring/summer, one head can make 6-12 cloves, plant them in full sun, I have a garlic bed but I also plant one clove between each of my roses, garlic plants don't take up that much room, they get tall 3-4ft and maybe 6-12in wide at the base and not many leaves, they also make a cool flower head and then fall over when done...one clove will turn into one head in 9 months.........

The store bought worms sometimes have additives that can be bad for a closed system...so check where you buy them if you don't collect them from your yard or compost bin.

I have chopped up some snails from my over population and fed straight from the shell...a very tedious job..but the fish love it...thought about making or adding some to food...but the tedious job has turned me off.....lol.......


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## Angel079

Oldfishlady said:


> Have you ever read "Common sense" Obituary....pretty funny and sadly true......


Sure had not...sound interesting thou :-D



Oldfishlady said:


> We had a massive amount of mosquito larva last year so I started to gather and freeze them, I plan to add these frozen skeeters to a mix, I have not tried it yet and I don't know how freezing affect the nutrition value of skeeters...but I do know they love frozen skeeter when I grate them over the tank with an old box grater, they like the live ones best, but due to being seasonal I thought I would give freezing them a try.


Hey you know what my rain barrel has a TON mosquito larva all the time I was debating to feed them too but was worried the fish wouldn't snatch all of them and then some hatch in my house which I didn't need....freezing them seems a very safe way to avoid that part :-D I never thought that far; tanks for the idea will feed them frozen now too hopefully my fish will like them :-D


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