When it comes to.
Fish foods that are available to consumers out on the market.
One of my favorite yet totally underutilized foods
is the premixed gel and DIY and dove foods.
And today that's what I'm going to talk about.
They have a lot of benefits when it comes to helping to make sure your fish stay
healthy.
So one of the main benefits that comes with them is that you can use them to add
medication, to give directly to your fish.
When you're making these a lot of them,
you can make them in their own individual sizes.
You can make them an ultra small portions,
which makes them great for adding medication to, by doing this,
it might eliminate you having to medicate and treat a whole tank when you only
need to treat one fish.
Another benefit that comes with them is that you can customize most of
them to fit your fish's specific tastes and needs. For example,
the Dr.
Tim's product we're going to talk about today allows you to add a whole bunch of
different extras to the food. If you've got a cow fish like me,
who loves his Nori,
but has a hard time getting some with all of the other fish in the tank,
I can add some little bits of Nori in that food,
just for him and make something special.
Another benefit is when it comes to enrichment. Now,
if you've seen any of my videos about the fish series in all of them,
I like to talk about ways to enrich your fish's life.
And one of the ways that you can do that is through these gel dough and DIY
foods.
When you make them a lot of them allow you to apply them directly to the
corals and the rock work in your tank, as well as on the glass. Now,
when I say coral, I'm not talking about putting them on the live corals.
A lot of times you can actually get dead coral skeletons to put in the tank that
allows you to mimic that natural,
wild feeding behavior of some of the fish species that you might keep in your
take. So I'm going to get started.
We're going to talk about three different kinds of do it yourself foods.
First off, we're going to have to buy new life spectrum.
One of them is going to be a gel. The other is going to be a dough.
And then we're going to talk about Dr. Tim's aquatics, beneficial fish food.
Now the Dole food is going to be one that you can keep in the refrigerator and
the gel food by new way, spectrum,
you can keep that in the refrigerator or the freezer. However, the Dr.
Tim's food is one that you will put in the freezer.
So depending on how much space you have and the needs that you have,
you can select what method is best for you. All right, let's get cooking.
We're going to get started with our new list. Spectrum foods.
Now the gels you make the same,
you're going to need boiling hot water for those.
And the only difference in making the Dole food is that the DOE requires
cold water. Go ahead and open your container.
You might have to shake it around and sift it to get that little informational
pamphlet out. Once you have that pamphlet,
you can take it and set it aside for reference later.
The first ingredient you're going to need is water.
So get a heat safe container and get some water next up.
You're either going to want to boil it on the stove or put it in the microwave.
Uh.
Water out and set it next to your cook station.
This recipe requires a ratio of one scoop of
powder to three scoops of water.
So go ahead and measure out however much you want to make. In this example,
I'm going to use two scoops of powder to six
scoops of water.
Go ahead and add all of that water in together with the powder,
making sure not to burn yourself. Once you have all of the water in there,
go ahead and make sure that you incorporate the two so that the powder is mixed.
Well, now,
one thing that new life spectrum recommends is that you can use a fork or spoon
to mix this,
but a whisk or an emulsion blender will work significantly better and have it
set up much more of a gel texture. Okay?
Now that you have it all mixed up,
go ahead and put it in the refrigerator and let it sit,
set a timer for 15 to 20 minutes when it's up.
Go ahead and take it out. Now,
as you can see this set up a little bit wet,
it's more the texture that you would get. If you were to make the dough.
If you want this to be thicker, like a gel,
go ahead and use an emulsion blender. When you're done,
go ahead and cover it up. You can keep it in the refrigerator for several days.
Next up is the Dr. Tim's aquatics, natural, beneficial fish food.
They come in kits for freshwater and Marine,
and you can get these extras with built-in grinders to add some fun for your
fish. Go ahead and open your kit, taking out the food,
your stir, stick, the bag, your recipe,
and the silicone container. Your first ingredient is going to be water.
So add some to a heat safe container,
and then either microwave it or heated on the stove until it's boiling.
You want to make sure that this water is really
Once your water is ready, bring it to your food prep station. At this stage,
you're going to want a separate mixing container. I recommend one with the lip,
pour out half a cup of a boiling hot water into your mixing
container. Next,
you want to add that pouch of fish food into your hot water
at this stage. You'll want to add any of those extras,
medications or vitamins that you want to incorporate into the food
stirred, making sure that the powder and the liquid are all mixed. Well,
once it's mixed, go ahead and pour it into the silicone molds,
trying to get it evenly, dispersed throughout.
If you don't feel all of the squares, don't worry. That's okay.
Next,
take your wooden stir stick and scrape from side to side and top to bottom.
This will help to ensure that your cubes come out nice and evenly place in their
freezer for two hours. When it's finished,
go ahead and remove that tray of cubes.
You can manipulate the tray back and forth up and down to loosen the cubes and
they should pop out fairly easily.
Take all of those cubes.
Once you have them out of the container and place them in that plastic bag that
you were given in the kit,
remove all of the air and store in the freezer for several days. All right.
Now that you've seen how to make all of these gel dough and DIY foods.
Hopefully that's given you confidence and makes you want to try them in your
home aquariums. Now I'm curious. Have you ever tried them before?
Leave a comment?
Let me know which ones you've tried and how it worked out for you. All right.
Thank you so much for watching. I will see you next time.
[Inaudible].