I'm going to try to make a gel food to feed to my 0-3 week old fry. One of the things I want to add to it is egg, to add more protein. (since my mother will not let me put anything that a human can't eat into it...its her blender) So the question is how would you prepare it, cook it first or add raw as part of the liquids? Add yolk only because thats where the protein is, or the whole egg? Hard boil, or pan fry if you would cook it? The other main protein source will probably be shrimp and maybe some salmon. Any suggestions welcome, still not decided on the veggies to go in.

When you are planning to feed the fry egg yolk, it is a hardboiled egg yolk. Eat the white yourself. Take the yolk and put it in a little jar and shake it up. Syringe out just a bit of that cloudy water and put that in the water for the fry. IF you store the yolk jar in the fridge, you can keep if for 2-3 days before you have to replace it.

Be aware that when you feed egg yolk that you need to keep the tank - and the sponge of the filter - VERY clean - for a type of a mold can develop very quickly as the yolk fouls the water.

For gel food for fry over about 10 days of age, I usually stick to the veggies only. They will not necessarily get enough food from the gel to feed them well enough - so I still feed the regular feedings of brine shrimp - with a piece of gel put in to let them nibble all day long. The gel left needs to be taken out at night.

Cut the gel for the fry into a very narrow, skinny strip - giving as much surface area available to the fry to nibble. A cube does not have as much available surface area.

Try spinach, dandylion greens, peas, broccoli in the gel. IF your mom would let you, you could drop in any of the foods your adult fish eat - soaking and softening them in the blanching water you use for the veggies. This makes a nutricious snack for the fry.

If you are cleaning the blender between uses such that it is healthy for your family to use, then you are also cleaning it well enough that you should be able to put fish food in it. A properly cleaned blender does not have any food stuffs left behind anyway. The fish food is natural, good foods - no problems if you were to eat it anyway!

Thanks for the egg info. My mom has this thing against worms, especially blood worms. My grandma told me to just put whatever in the food and my mom will never know. I agree with the blender cleaning part that it should be cleaned well enough afterwards to put whatever is needed in it. My mom did say that as far as she is concerned the blender cup is all dishwasher safe. I have some frozen brine shrimp I want to add to the gel food and still debating the moral issue about adding the bloodworm cubes and not telling my mom.

My oldest fry are now 3 1/2 weeks old, however there are new fry that show up attached to the glass every 2 days or so. Today I found one that must be on its first or second day of free swimming in the net with the bigger ones eating the bbs at dinnertime.

The babies are so small they can get through the net for about a week, so after the first big batch I have stopped collecting them and I figure if they want the good food they will find their way to the net themselves. The main reason I netted them in the first place was to have more controll over their feeding so I wouldn't have to try and feed fry all over the 25 gal tank.

Onr more question, If we were to try giving any of the gel food to our cats as a treat, or to try and get the one who has eating problems to eat something, the frozen stuff would need to be cooked first right? I am currently thinking about doing 2 diff batches and only one would have the frozen brine shrimp/bloodworms etc in it. The other one would be just veggies and regular/sundried shrimp for the plecos.

Well, frozen BABY brine shrimp are fine, just by themselves for the fry. I feed those for the first 10 days or so - exclusively. I just drop a cube into a little cup, add a touch of water until they thaw and pour the tiny specks of food over the tank. The fry will gobble it - most get it all before it even reaches the bottom of the tank.

Remember - fry are TINY. They need food that is quick and easy and filling. They are not as willing to sit and pick at the gel food as they probably should be - at least at first. Having a piece of gel food in the tank during the day to give them the option to graze all day is great - but I do not feel it is enough. Having a nice plush layer of green algae will do the same thing - the fry will graze all day long.

Bloodworms and brineshrimp ( not baby) and even frozen daphnia is really too big for new fry (under 10 days) Stick to the baby brine shrimp or egg yolk. After about 10-14 days, you can branch out to the daphnia (I buy mine frozen and dissolve them and feed the the same way as the frozen baby brine shrimp) If the fry are fed well, within about 14-21 days, they are ready for the regular SanFran frozen brine shrimp. These, too, can simply be thawed and distributed about the tank. They enjoy a cube of gel food (veggies only is fine if you are feeding shrimp for other meals). Daphnia and baby brine shrimp are too small - and most fry will not mess with them. That is the time to soak some crushed flakes or pellets of standard food so that they sink, and feed them for one meal. I have 9 different foods for the fry - all but the brine shrimp are ones that I use for the adult fish, just in smaller bites.

I feed the fry a wide variety of things. I try to have gel food of one nature or another available during the day. I have algae on the back walls. Do not count on one food alone to do the job. Definately do not count on gel food to do the whole job for you. Bloodworms will need to be chopped very very finely for fry to eat - and if not eaten, can foul the water. So chop them carefully - or wait until the fry are bigger. Mine do not get them - I give them to the adults. Crush the flakes and soak them. Crush the pellets and soak them.

Brine shrimp (frozen types) do not have to be cooked. In fact - do not cook them. They are best eaten "on the hoof" - live if possible. The krill and such - cook them if you wish (I am assuming you are buying the ones from the butcher shop that you would eat, right?) That is fine.

The cat will enjoy any of the foods you make. Mine love to clean out the fish's feeding bowls after I have fed. They lick out all the drips of shrimp and fish.... YUM!
I am glad your grandma is doing what a grandma is supposed to do - have fun with you in doing things. Enjoy those fry!

Well, there used to be algae in that tank...before the fry came along. They have stripped the tank walls, plants, and decorations of anything the plecos were not eating, even the brown algae on one of the plants. The water still has some green algae free floating as the tank gets some sunlight in the morning and I am assuming that is what the newcomers eat before finding their way towards the breeding net. Found a group of about 10 more still attached to the glass this morning. I finally saw a group of eggs on one of the plants, mom was eating some, but leaving others. I get dizzy thinking about how many fry I would have if the parents weren't eating some of the eggs.

I will start adding the gel food on top of their regular foods, which currently are bbs and hikari first bites. I think the bigger ones are ready for some different foods, but the little ones are still afraid of anything about the same size as their heads. So far the bigger ones mouths are still to little to eat the newcomers. I am thinking about setting up a second net and seperating the older ones out, to give more room...and prevent the inevitable cannibalism that would happen if I left them all together. The older ones look like minatures of their parents, they now have all their fins and are starting to get a fuller body to go with them.