I'm going to make some home-made shrimp food. The recipe is a modified version of Jayc's recipe: Chlorella, Spirulina, powdered Mulberry leaves, Bee Pollen and Astaxanthin bound by Agar Agar.

My Astaxanthin is a long way off (group buy from USA) so I was thinking about Krill Oil. It's high in Astaxanthin and Omega-3 but is it shrimp safe? (will probably test in my cull tank)

 

What do you all think?

Edited March 8, 201511 yr by Aquathumb

Oil in any form , be it krill or olive oil, doesnt bid well with agar.
You'll end up with an oil slick on the water surface.

Just make a smaller batch now without the astaxanthin.
Then make another small batch when the asta gets here.

You dont want to make big batches anyway, it wont keep for too long.
3 weeks max. So make enough that will get used up in 3 weeks.

Mulberry leaves powder is new. Where did you get it from?

Edited March 8, 201511 yr by jayc

Good to know. I will give it a miss, Thanks :)

 I don't have the Mulberry Leaf Powder yet but am planing to buy off ebay. most sellers are in Korea.

 

australherbs.com.au used to stock it but seems to have disappeared from their website. They have some other great stuff for shrimp food though, like:

 

(All organic and in powdered form)

 

Spirulina

Alfalfa

Barley Grass

Brewers Yeast

Broccoli

Chlorella

Dandelion Leaf

Paw Paw Leaf

Nettle Leaf

 

And well priced too, for instance 250g of organic Spirulina powder for $15.70

 

Well worth a look.

I wonder if a shrimp safe emulsifier could bind the oil with the Agar (I'm guessing its the water in the agar that is repelling the oil) two options that spring to mind are Egg yolk and Soy lecithin. Time to do some experiments I think

*dang no mad scientist emoticon*

 

This will have to suffice:

 

 I don't have the Mulberry Leaf Powder yet but am planing to buy off ebay. most sellers are in Korea.

 

australherbs.com.au used to stock it but seems to have disappeared from their website. They have some other great stuff for shrimp food though, like:

 

(All organic and in powdered form)

 

Spirulina

Alfalfa

Barley Grass

Brewers Yeast

Broccoli

Chlorella

Dandelion Leaf

Paw Paw Leaf

Nettle Leaf

 

And well priced too, for instance 250g of organic Spirulina powder for $15.70

 

Well worth a look.

 

This is going to be useful.

Great website, been looking for organic Cinnamomum quills 

Yeah I have heard of some shrimpers putting Cinnamon sticks/bark in there tanks... need to look into it more.

Aquathumb, great link for australherbs, thanks. 

 

I watched this thread emerge and intended to add to it sooner, but had to look up some old notes first. 

 

A batch of food I made a few years ago turned out really well and did include cod liver oil. I was unable to easily source krill oil at the time, but the liver oil is a decent source of vitamin D and that is quite important in indoor culture. I added the oil at 0.5% by volume and had no problems with oily residue on the water. Lipids are are critical source of nutrition for our creatures and cannot be omitted from their diet. The batch of food in question also contained several other sources of animal oils with a total fat content around 7%. The feed was a pliable, dry wafer rather than a jelly food but it did contain some agar to help with binding it. I am preparing to make a second batch now and it will certainly contain krill oil this time. You may be interested to note that soy lecithin was also an ingredient in the feed. 

I tried to feed them some krill oil. It is so dense, a drop will sink to the bottom. It attracts the shrimp immediately, but when they taste it, they jumped away . It's so heavy it scares them I guess. I also mixed it with some krill powder to make some sticks. They eat it, but I don't feed it anymore. It might be a good source of omega3 etc, but it also seems to be a Nitrate NO3 bomb

Hi Shrimpmaster, nice to hear the krill oil is such a good attractant. You're brave to put a drop directly into the water, no way I'd try that here! At 0.5% by volume a drop is enough for 10cc / 2 teaspoons of feed, way more than I'd ever add at once, at least in tanks like mine.