Fish-food economics
Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 10:41 am
My fish eat too much food. It gets expensive. A big flat of Bloodworm costs me about $24 after the tax has gone on it. They can eat that in no time unless I ration it, but that means feeding other foods which are also expensive. My Clowns LOVE Hikari Sinking Carnivour Pellets which I buy in bulk. Again, they polish off a $20+ tub of those in around a month, even fed with other foods.
So a while ago I started making my own frozen food. I was using Dr. Momfish's blender but that broke and was discarded so I decided to buy my own.
What follows is a blow by blow breakdown of producing a new batch of food. Last batch included snail flesh, but the Thai Supermarket didn't have any this time so I've substituted Clam flesh instead.
Here's the ingredients.
I'm including the cost of the blender in this batch. At the end I'll do a cost breakdown per flat of food produced. If you own a blender already this cost is not one you will have.
1) Black & Decker BL 4900.............................$79.77
2) 0.9 lb of Clam meat.................................. $3.99
3) 1.56 lb of Pollock Fillet...............................$2.48
4) 2 packets of Gelatine to set the mixture.
@ $2.39 for 4 sachets, we'll use 6, so..............$3.58
5) 1 can of original V8 juice...........................$0.99
6) 2 340g packs of cooked Cocktail Shrimp.....$5.00
7) 300g chopped, frozen Spinach....................$0.97
8 ) 1/2 tsp of garlic paste (not including this price...negligible)
9) 1 Banana..................................................$0.17
10) 0.9 lb of Beef Liver...................................$0.91
TOTAL COST..................................................$97.86
Less Blender cost...........................................$18.09
Now I'm assuming/guessing that I can get 8 flats out of this mix, which gives me a cost per flat of $ 12.23, i.e like half the price of a flat of Bloodworm.
The next batch will not include the cost of the blender so 8 flats will work out at $ 2.26 per flat.
Right as I write I'm waiting for some of this stuff to defrost. Once it does I'm going to do a photographic blow by blow of the process as people have asked me before for the recipe so I thought I might as well show you how it's done too.
Warning: I am anticipating.....if they're anything like liquified snails....that pictures of the Clams will require a PG13 warning (at least)
Martin.
So a while ago I started making my own frozen food. I was using Dr. Momfish's blender but that broke and was discarded so I decided to buy my own.
What follows is a blow by blow breakdown of producing a new batch of food. Last batch included snail flesh, but the Thai Supermarket didn't have any this time so I've substituted Clam flesh instead.
Here's the ingredients.
I'm including the cost of the blender in this batch. At the end I'll do a cost breakdown per flat of food produced. If you own a blender already this cost is not one you will have.
1) Black & Decker BL 4900.............................$79.77
2) 0.9 lb of Clam meat.................................. $3.99
3) 1.56 lb of Pollock Fillet...............................$2.48
4) 2 packets of Gelatine to set the mixture.
@ $2.39 for 4 sachets, we'll use 6, so..............$3.58
5) 1 can of original V8 juice...........................$0.99
6) 2 340g packs of cooked Cocktail Shrimp.....$5.00
7) 300g chopped, frozen Spinach....................$0.97
8 ) 1/2 tsp of garlic paste (not including this price...negligible)
9) 1 Banana..................................................$0.17
10) 0.9 lb of Beef Liver...................................$0.91
TOTAL COST..................................................$97.86
Less Blender cost...........................................$18.09
Now I'm assuming/guessing that I can get 8 flats out of this mix, which gives me a cost per flat of $ 12.23, i.e like half the price of a flat of Bloodworm.
The next batch will not include the cost of the blender so 8 flats will work out at $ 2.26 per flat.
Right as I write I'm waiting for some of this stuff to defrost. Once it does I'm going to do a photographic blow by blow of the process as people have asked me before for the recipe so I thought I might as well show you how it's done too.
Warning: I am anticipating.....if they're anything like liquified snails....that pictures of the Clams will require a PG13 warning (at least)
Martin.
