Discus Fish Food Recipe: Beef Heart
Meat: a very excellent source of protein not only for humans but for discus fish as well. Unlike most tropical fishes, discus requires great amount of nutrients to improve and maintain their beautiful color, as well as promote spawning and fry rearing. Beef heart is one of the most popular foods recommended by discus fish care experts not only because of its nutritional value. This food, when prepared properly can be very palatable even for these picky eaters.
In this post, we will share to you our well-kept beef heart food recipe. It’s not that difficult to make as you can see from the instructions below.
What you’ll need to make the recipe:
3 pounds of fresh beef heart – cleaned, defatted, and trimmed
2 pounds of raw shrimp – peeled
1 pound of white shrimp – peeled
1 pound of beef liver – trimmed, rinsed, and soaked in hot water for up to 5 minutes
2 pounds of plankton – rinsed and thawed
2 pounds of frozen spinach – steamed
1 box of peas – lightly steamed
6 egg yolks
1/3 cup of kelp powder
¼ cup of brewer’s yeast
¼ cup of wheat germ
1 tablespoon of spirulina powder
1 tbsp of Vitamin C powder
30 grams Agar powder
* Some ingredients like brewer’s yeast, spirulina powder, vitamin C and Agar powder may not be readily available at most tropical fish store. However, they can be easily purchased from local health food store. If there’s none, the last resort could be to reach out for health food vendors online.
*When buying beef and beef products for discus, it is best to opt for those that come from cows raised free of bovine growth hormone and antibiotics.
Preparations:
Process the meat and seafood ingredients beef heart, shrimp, liver, and plankton as indicated. Mix them with spinach and peas using a food processor.
Add in the egg yolks, kelp powder, brewer’s yeast, wheat germ, spirulina, and vitamin C powder. Stir vigorously and mix well with agar powder. Set aside.
Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare cookie sheets and line them with wax paper.
Spread the batter onto the cookie sheet smoothly and evenly, approximately ½ inch thick.
Put the sheet/s into the oven and time for 20 minutes. The heat activates the binding effect of agar powder.
Remove from oven and wait for the food to cool.
Once cooled, place the food into a freezer. Once frozen, the preparation should now be ready to be cut into blocks or cubes.
To keep and prolong food quality, store the beef heart cubes in freezer bags and place in freezer.
Additional pointers:
What’s great about the beef heart recipe is that it can be your base for more food add-ons. You can certainly put medication to the mix if needed.
Be sure to use un-expired agar powder to prevent the food from breaking apart. Simply follow the binder-making process we stated in the procedure.
Finally, beef heart food is an excellent feed for discus fish of all ages. Of course, depending on the size of the fish, you might want to adjust how big or small you slice the food.
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