# DIY Gelatin food



## cell (Mar 9, 2009)

I have two african dwarf frogs and I'm trying to find a more convenient way of feeding them. So basically I'm trying to make protein rich, soft, sinking piece of food.

I had the idea to crush some floating pellets/flakes and then adding it to a gelatin mixture that I would keep in a refrigerator. Everyday, I would simply cut a small portion of the jelly-food to feed my adf (and maybe also my fishes/shrimps). Do you think it's a good idea? Anyone tried this before?


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## Calcimoo (May 15, 2009)

Yeah, I made a huge messy batch of all the foods nobody would eat, added about a pound of frozen and thawed spinach, about same of zucchini and carrots. The foods nobody would eat was huge, flakes, pellets, tons of stuff. When that came out too soupy I just put it all back in again with more gelatin about 8 X's stronger. So, ok, that came out perfect. Oh, I used a blender, then a 13 X 9? cake pan lined with seran wrap. Actually I had 2 pans spread thick. Spread it flat in there, I guess you would want it real thin for small mouths. I feed it to goldfish with huge mouths. I didn't get the part about cutting lines into part way before you freeze it done. Makes it so you can break it apart so you can take out just what you want, however you package it. That's so flexible, you can do anything you want with it. I didn't use anyone's recipes either, just blobbed it all in there. Just get about 4 boxes of gelatin if you think you only need one, I can tell you that much. 

The problem I have with it is it works best if partially frozen when you feed it to them. It stinks so bad they go nuts over it. They swim right past it in a frenzy. It finishes thawing real quick and makes one hell of a mess of your filters. I hope that makes sense. If you feed it already fully thawed it dissolves. If you made it mostly gelatin I dont know if they'd go for it. I take out a hunk of it, set it on a plate and hopefully don't forget it before it thaws too much and get it fed. 

I don't feed it to them all the time. When I do just for lunch. I think it has to be the best food in the world for them. But it wouldn't be the best if that's all they got. 

I hope this helps.


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## cell (Mar 9, 2009)

Nice! thanks a lot for your story! I'm definitely interested in making my own!

I began experimenting a little with Agar-agar instead of Gelatin (Agar-agar is an algae used for chinese desert, it's cheap and thicken/set in minutes at room temperature). 

I have used a few crushed pellets (crushing using a folded sheet of paper and a rolling pin). But it did not turn right because the crushed pellets sank at the bottom of the jelly and did not set properly. I'll have to try again


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## PRJCT92EH2 (Mar 7, 2008)

i was reading something about this on a discus board the other day. A lot of them make their own food so you may want to check there. Goodluck!


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

I make my own fish food from grocery store ingredients:
60% Fish and shellfish (whatever is on special, about 3 pounds total) 
35% Vegetables such as spinach, yams or pumpkin, and garlic (frozen chopped spinach, plus one yam, all the big parts off one clove of garlic). 
5% (1) Banana
About 1/4 cup Spirulina algae powder (health food store)
Agar (still fine tuning this- gotta add more- food is falling apart when the fish hit it)

1) Cook whatever needs cooking- vegies, fish... in as little water as possible. 
2) As these cool mix them together and add other things that did not need cooking. Mix agar well with some of the water from the cooking and stir it in. I use a food processor that chops stuff up, but the finer I cut it up to start with the faster it is finished in the food processor. Crushing the garlic, for example is very helpful. If the mix is too wet add freeze dried foods such as high quality flakes, bloodworms or other foods to absorb some water. 
3) Spoon the pureed food into sandwich bags. Spread it thin and exclude ALL possible air when I seal the bag. The bag is about 1/8" - 1/4" thick with food. (For your frogs, try to keep it 1/8" thick)
4) Lay the filled bags onto a flat sheet and freeze.* 
5) When it is all frozen the bags can be stored in a gallon freezer bag, about a dozen sandwich bags per 1 gallon freezer bag. 

To serve open the sandwich bag and break off whatever you want to feed. Reseal, again excluding all possible air. (I have so many tanks that I feed one sandwich bag per meal)

* I tried using eggcrate (the lighting cover) to imprint the bag and food with squares when things were about half frozen. They did not hold the squares very well, and I could not stack them back onto the flat trays. Every bag needed to be kept flat while it finished freezing to retain the square pattern. I gave up. Easy enough to break up the thin sheets of food without the squares. 
I also tried freezing the food in the small cubed trays that frozen fish food comes in. The food I make is too lumpy for that. Again, back to the flat packs of sandwich bags.


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