Yes He will share the melafix and primafix recipe also the green food Cichlid Staple, so tomorrow-Wednesday-I will post it here.
Does anyone make there own food mix?
- Thread starter cichlidcichlid
- Start date
Sorry for the delay, life got in the way yesterday. Here are the recipes for Melafix and Pimafix as promised.
Melafix is comprised of 1% cajeput oil (Tee Tree Oil can be substituted)
1% emulsifier
.2% defoamer
97.8% H20
so that would translate to 5ml of Tee tree Oil and 500ml of h2o. As there is no emulsifier you must shake the bottle for 1 minute or longer to blend the oil and h2o
Pimafix is 1% Indian Bay Leaf Oil and 99% h2o, same as above
Melafix treats fungal infections, both internal and external bacterial infections. Melafix and Pimafix are formulated to work together. Pimafix will not harm biological filter in fw or sw or ponds, has no effect on ph and is harmless to aquatic plants. Using pimafix and melafix together works on especially stubborn infections plus provides the added benefit of quick tissue regeneration and wound healing. For best results remove activated carbon during treatment.
As a disease treatment add 1 tsp. for every 10g (40l) of aquarium water, repeat dose for 7 days, treatment can be continued. *whenever treating with any meds do a 25-50% water change every 3 days.
Hope that helps, green food diet will follow.
Melafix is comprised of 1% cajeput oil (Tee Tree Oil can be substituted)
1% emulsifier
.2% defoamer
97.8% H20
so that would translate to 5ml of Tee tree Oil and 500ml of h2o. As there is no emulsifier you must shake the bottle for 1 minute or longer to blend the oil and h2o
Pimafix is 1% Indian Bay Leaf Oil and 99% h2o, same as above
Melafix treats fungal infections, both internal and external bacterial infections. Melafix and Pimafix are formulated to work together. Pimafix will not harm biological filter in fw or sw or ponds, has no effect on ph and is harmless to aquatic plants. Using pimafix and melafix together works on especially stubborn infections plus provides the added benefit of quick tissue regeneration and wound healing. For best results remove activated carbon during treatment.
As a disease treatment add 1 tsp. for every 10g (40l) of aquarium water, repeat dose for 7 days, treatment can be continued. *whenever treating with any meds do a 25-50% water change every 3 days.
Hope that helps, green food diet will follow.
Originally published in The Calquarium Volume 41, Number 2
A less expensive alternative to flake food is homemade food. If you like to cook, this can also be fun, although to be honest I tend to think of making your own fish food as a bit of a smelly chore. Thankfully, it is easy to make and freeze enough to last you a good six months or more so you don’t need to put yourself through it very often.
Before your start, get yourself a food processor. Then you can make any one of the various recipes that are kicking around. Most of these recipes have several things in common; namely they are bound together by unflavored gelatin and contain whole fish, vegetable matter, and beef heart. This is my recipe. I food-process several multivitamin tables (with vitamin C) to dust, then process about ½ kilo of the red meat portion of a beef heart (cut away from all the fat and connective tissue). Then goes in a good handful of spinach leaves (no stems), one young whole zucchini, and a few raw carrots. Then the bulk of the food is added, which is whole fish. The fish I originally used were those minnows sold as bait, but I have since discovered Shun Fat, an Oriental supermarket in Forest Lawn (at 3215 17th Ave, SE, Calgary). Here you can get a wide assortment of frozen sea foods. Nowadays I buy a kilo of frozen capelin since they are full of nutritious roe. I also get a frozen ½ kilo bag of something called "shrimp fry". I am not sure exactly what this is (some form of krill I think) but it’s a lot cheaper than buying real shrimp, which I would have to do if this wonderful stuff weren’t available. I also add ½ kilo of mosquito larvae and Daphnia that I had collected myself and froze previously. All the ingredients are processed to a thick paste. Then a liter of water is added and the mixture is brought to a low boil to congeal the blood. I then dissolve three large boxes (36 packets) of Knox unflavored gelatin in a liter of cool water. I mix this liquid into the food (after it’s cooled a bit) and let the mixture set overnight in the refrigerator. The next day I split the jelly into two or three-day feeding portions and freeze them separately in sandwich-sized freezer bags. I keep one freezer bag defrosted in the refrigerator at all times. My cichlids and turtles love this stuff. It sinks and doesn’t cloud the water (too much).
VEGETABLE DIETS
Many fish either require vegetable diets or can benefit from them. Most notable for requiring vegetables are the plecos (South American algae eating catfishes), silver dollars (vegetarian relatives of the piranha), and mbuna (rock-dwelling cichlids from Lake Malawi, Africa). These fishes have extraordinarily long guts and will develop lower-digestive problems if they do not get enough roughage in their diets. These problems are usually followed by a lethal bacterial infection. Almost all other fish will also benefit from some vegetable matter as greens contain folic acid and the carotenes that are needed for the creation of red and yellow pigments. The vegetables in the gelatin food discussed above are adequate for almost all fish, but plecos and mbuna should really have some additional plant foods as well. Easiest to provide are slices of par-boiled young zucchini (par-boiling makes it sink). Romaine lettuce is also useful.
A less expensive alternative to flake food is homemade food. If you like to cook, this can also be fun, although to be honest I tend to think of making your own fish food as a bit of a smelly chore. Thankfully, it is easy to make and freeze enough to last you a good six months or more so you don’t need to put yourself through it very often.
Before your start, get yourself a food processor. Then you can make any one of the various recipes that are kicking around. Most of these recipes have several things in common; namely they are bound together by unflavored gelatin and contain whole fish, vegetable matter, and beef heart. This is my recipe. I food-process several multivitamin tables (with vitamin C) to dust, then process about ½ kilo of the red meat portion of a beef heart (cut away from all the fat and connective tissue). Then goes in a good handful of spinach leaves (no stems), one young whole zucchini, and a few raw carrots. Then the bulk of the food is added, which is whole fish. The fish I originally used were those minnows sold as bait, but I have since discovered Shun Fat, an Oriental supermarket in Forest Lawn (at 3215 17th Ave, SE, Calgary). Here you can get a wide assortment of frozen sea foods. Nowadays I buy a kilo of frozen capelin since they are full of nutritious roe. I also get a frozen ½ kilo bag of something called "shrimp fry". I am not sure exactly what this is (some form of krill I think) but it’s a lot cheaper than buying real shrimp, which I would have to do if this wonderful stuff weren’t available. I also add ½ kilo of mosquito larvae and Daphnia that I had collected myself and froze previously. All the ingredients are processed to a thick paste. Then a liter of water is added and the mixture is brought to a low boil to congeal the blood. I then dissolve three large boxes (36 packets) of Knox unflavored gelatin in a liter of cool water. I mix this liquid into the food (after it’s cooled a bit) and let the mixture set overnight in the refrigerator. The next day I split the jelly into two or three-day feeding portions and freeze them separately in sandwich-sized freezer bags. I keep one freezer bag defrosted in the refrigerator at all times. My cichlids and turtles love this stuff. It sinks and doesn’t cloud the water (too much).
VEGETABLE DIETS
Many fish either require vegetable diets or can benefit from them. Most notable for requiring vegetables are the plecos (South American algae eating catfishes), silver dollars (vegetarian relatives of the piranha), and mbuna (rock-dwelling cichlids from Lake Malawi, Africa). These fishes have extraordinarily long guts and will develop lower-digestive problems if they do not get enough roughage in their diets. These problems are usually followed by a lethal bacterial infection. Almost all other fish will also benefit from some vegetable matter as greens contain folic acid and the carotenes that are needed for the creation of red and yellow pigments. The vegetables in the gelatin food discussed above are adequate for almost all fish, but plecos and mbuna should really have some additional plant foods as well. Easiest to provide are slices of par-boiled young zucchini (par-boiling makes it sink). Romaine lettuce is also useful.
would making it from scratch like this actually cost more than actually buying the real thing?
Theres alot of ingredients in there!
Must cost alot.
Where do you get they ingredients from?
cichlidcichlid
Theres alot of ingredients in there!
Must cost alot.
Where do you get they ingredients from?
cichlidcichlid
Grocery store, heart runs about $0.50 a lb, the most expensive shrimp he has used was $5.49 for 2.2 lbs, he has also used a 1 lb bag of thawed frozen peas if he could not get fresh spinach, vit c is in the cupboard and knox gelatin runs about $2.30 a box here, but it LASTS FOREVER and the fish love it and it shows. He also feeds dried krill, sinking pellets and occasionally frozen bllodworms and homegrown brine shrimp. really not that expensive
so the beaf heart is cooked to get rid of unwanted stuff?
What is the consistancy of the food when you are finished?
Does it fall apart in the water?
How does it smell?
How long would it last to feed 10 african cichlids once a day?
What is the consistancy of the food when you are finished?
Does it fall apart in the water?
How does it smell?
How long would it last to feed 10 african cichlids once a day?
All the ingredients are processed to a thick paste. Then a liter of water is added and the mixture is brought to a low boil to congeal the blood.
The consistency is like hard jello, it can either be stuck onto the glass or dropped in, it does fall apart because the fish just rip it apart, it has not smell and he makes a batch about every 3-4 months or so and he feeds 8 tanks of cichlids and fry with it.
The consistency is like hard jello, it can either be stuck onto the glass or dropped in, it does fall apart because the fish just rip it apart, it has not smell and he makes a batch about every 3-4 months or so and he feeds 8 tanks of cichlids and fry with it.
I make my own flake using corn starch instead of gelatin (not in the same quantity) then put it in a food dehydrator. This batch is rock hard so I crush it up in a mortar and pestle. My fish go nuts for it! It is the first time I have noticed an improvement in color that I can blame on a food.
The recipe was kind of ad hoc but the food consists of squid, smelt, shrimp, wheat germ, carrots and a bunch of fridge leftover veggies.
The recipe was kind of ad hoc but the food consists of squid, smelt, shrimp, wheat germ, carrots and a bunch of fridge leftover veggies.
