Here's another forumulation/spinoff of Dr. Gordon's forumula. I've used a variant of this in the past with no ill effects [difficult to quantify 'success' other than to say the fish ate it without a problem].
Jim's Beef Heart Recipe by Jim Foreman
First published in Fincinnati, the official newsletter of the Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society
Aquarticles
This article is similar to whipping a dead horse, but a number of people have asked how to make my beef heart fish food. The question always arises "Why this?" and "Why that?" so the next paragraph should be regarded as a brief "why" explanation.
A good deal of time was spent researching variations of beef heart recipes. One reference reported that a post mortem of a wild caught discus' stomach indicated that it contained greens and fruit fragments. Famous discus growers' recipes were analyzed and some effort was made to determine nutritional content. Let me be one of the first to tell you that nutritional requirement information for fish is about as plentiful as hens' teeth. Yet, some sources are saying "hole in the head" is the result of poor nutrition. How can they say that when there is no yardstick against which existing nutrition can be compared? Well what do you do to ensure your fish have a good diet? One answer is to use common sense and the success of the experts as a point of departure. All ingredients added to basic beef heart recipes were done so for a specific purpose, even though it may have been only to make it more acceptable to the target fish.
Ingredients 10 - 12 lbs beef heart
½ lg bag frozen peas
4 lbs ocean fish
2 lbs shrimp (Make sure it is raw)
4 bananas
2 pears
5 or 6 strawberries
1 bag spinach
8000 IU vitamin E
50 g vitamin C
50 good quality 1 a day type of multi vitamin
1 lb spirulina flakes
4 oz wheat germ
1 head cauliflower
High protein baby cereal
Directions - Purchase 10 to 12 pounds of beef heart. Ask the butcher to remove all of the fat before grinding it. Emphasize all of the fat and tell him you do not mind paying for the fat as long as it is removed from the heart before grinding. I have found that more than half the work and mess is grinding the beef heart, so I have the butcher do it.
- Place the ground beef heart in a large bowl. Now make sure this is a really large bowl or pan so you do not get into the position of trying to put 10 lbs of manure into a 5 lb bag.
- Next, you are going to grind ingredients. After grinding, put each into the beef heart mixing bowl or pan. - Measure out about half (1 to 1 ½ cups) of the frozen peas and grind them while still frozen.
- Clean the fish, and, if not already done, remove bones. Grind.
- Clean and grind the shrimp.
- Peel the bananas and grind.
- Wash the pear well, core and grind.
- Clean the strawberries, wash well and grind.
- Clean the cauliflower, discarding stringy part of stems, grind.
- Grind vitamin E directly into the mixture.
- Using a mortar, pulverize the multi vitamins and vitamin C, put into mixture a little at a time while stirring to insure good mixing.
- Wheat germ. The fish will not eat the small seed-like grains, so I try to grind it the best I can with the mortar. The better you can grind it, the more will be eaten.
- Baby cereal - last item: mix every thing but the baby cereal, making sure it is mixed well. Use the baby cereal as a thickener. I find if it is stirred in a little at a time, it will absorb much of the cloudy appearance one gets with other recipes. Do not put too much cereal in, or the mixture will not hold together.
Bagging:
You may need to be inventive here, but I will describe what I do. Zip lock style bags are used; I found that bags about 6" x 7" filled so that when flattened are about 3/8" thick approximate one pound of food. Before you start bagging, you need to understand that food in the zipper ruins the seal and you will get freezer burn. We have a pot sized melitta for making coffee (it is like a funnel with a 1 1/4 in. dia hole) that I stick into the bag to drop the food through. Next, the zipper is zipped all but shut and all possible air is worked out of the zipper opening and the bag sealed. Think you are done? Well almost! Next, a rolling pin is used to roll the bag flat before putting it into the freezer. Take care to remove as much of the air as possible.
