Combatting Fish Food Costs

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GDominy

GDominy

Bottom feeders Rule
Mar 27, 2002
234
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0
Victoria, BC
www.themanicfishkeeper.com
Any of you who keep large tanks, or tanks with large fish can understand how painful the ongoing cost of frozen fish foods can be. I know from my own perspective I am feeding around $50 a month in Frozen foods alone and I don't have any monsters like some others here.

I'm curious what you guys do to help reduce your constant cash hemorrage to keep your pets happy and healthy. I've come up with a few things that have helped so I'll list them here..

1.) Buy bulk. I buy my Tetramin Pro Crisps in 4lb buckets This offers a substancial savings over buying it in containers (It saved me over $200 this way).

2.) Grow your own live foods. Worm farms and Mosquito larvae water containers are an excellent source of free food for meat eating fish.. I've got a few on the go (Redworms, earthworms, mosquito larvae) and plan on adding more (mysis shrimp are planned, as well as a large scale ghost shrimp breeding project)

3.) Make your own foods. A recent jaunt through the local superstore gave me an idea.. they sell shrimp rings (50-60 precooked shrimp) for $3 Canadian. I am now tossing these shrimp in whole into the loach tanks where they are eaten in about 20 minutes. I am working on a recipe that will involve diced shrimp, chicken, dried algae, and extra vitamins.

So what do you guys do? I'm curious to see what the options are.
 
R

Richer

AC Members
Aug 7, 2002
888
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Edmonton, AB
I trade my plant clippings in for store credit. Since I have some pretty fast growing plants in my tank, it generally creates enough credit for me to recover most of my food costs. I don't buy in bulk... my fish don't consume enough food for that to be feasible, the food would loss its nutritional value before I would even put a dent in it.

-Richer
 
dwayne

dwayne

AC Members
Jul 12, 2001
548
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Boston, MA
I make salad every night for dinner (bagged lettuce mix, cucumbers and peppers). I cut the ends off the cucumbers and peel them before cutting for the salad... I save the ends and put 2 in my tank a week -- freeze the rest. If I am making zucchini or summer squash, I do the same thing. I had a cucumber get too squishy for my liking once, and cut the whole thing and froze that.

I don't remember the last time I fed my tank bloodworms... My fish don't eat enough for me to buy their food in bulk. A small can of flakes and a medium pouch of algae wafers lasts me about 3 months!

~Tara
 
A

Aqualung

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Jan 31, 2004
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Raising live foods is a great way to go! I started with a small fruit fly culture a few weeks ago, and now I have multiple cultures and a steady supply of flies. It's so easy to do, and now I am looking at raising other live foods as well. It's cheap in the long run, a nutritional alternative to prepared foods, and you get to see feeding behavior that you would not see otherwise.
 
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