Beef Heart costings

[ILLUSN]

Hi All,

Made up my latest batch of beefheart over the week end and thought I'd crunch the numbers.

My mix uses:
Beefheart, Prawns, Scollops with roe, Salmon, bonless fish, steamed carrot, frozen peas, steamed spineach, garlic, NLS thera+A, tetra colour, freeze dried mysis, freeze dried blackworms, spirolina powder, astaxanthin powder, pro more and pro growth.

Basicly follow Merrilyns recipe
http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4218
but substitute scollops for "orange shrimp", 2 cups of NLS and Thera+A for the breeders blend and add 500g of lightly steamed frozen spineach.

In total i made 7.5kg and the total cost was $284.56 or ~$37 a kg.

The things we do for our fish.

[Ghoti]

When I made my first batch the wife was in shock as she watched the salmon fillet go into the mincer!

Cheers,
Scott

[ILLUSN]

Best thing about having a wife thats a cheff is you can buy a whole salmon and have her fillet it for you, works out the same price as buying it cut + theres plenty left over for dinner :)

[mawhins]

Illusn, is astaxanthin for bringing out red colours or would it also bring out blue? I've been trying to work out the best additive for blue diamonds and cobalts. So far it looks like ill just stick with spirulina but might try a higher percentage. I've really only added a token amount to date.

I always try to avoid crunching the numbers. Although at 37 a kg that's cheaper than discus granules and much better no doubt.

[ILLUSN]

astaxanthin will bring out red but it has other benifits then color enhancement. spirolina will bring out blue (well most colors) but adding too much makes the mix not pallatable, anymore then 2tsp/kg seems to put my fish off the food

[mawhins]

Ive just done a batch of bh mix and added perhaps twice that concentration of spirulina. So far they're liking it and I could swear they're bluer already. It's funny I picked up some sera discus colour blue pellets as well but they're not interested in it.

[broadfoot]

How long will 7.5 kgs last you? And how many fish are you feeding?

[ILLUSN]

I'm feeding 20 angelfish and about 20 geos it should last me 18 months atleast.
I store it in a non frost free freezer so it never thaws.
I also went 1/2s with a mate next tIme it's HIS turn to make it ( bout 11 hours work )

[random-cichlid]

How do u go with feeding all your other fish beef heart, Do you get bloat or anything from such a high protien diet.
Or are you just using the beef heart as a treat im mainly interested in the geos etc i thought heart would be way to rich for there diet.

I have 12 geo Steindachneri atm im growing out for breeding and shall get say 15 red head tapjos.

[ILLUSN]

The recipe is actually quite high in fiber with 500g spinach 250g peas, 250g carrots (13% minimum v/w vs 2% MAX for tetra color and 5% MAX NLS).
Peas, spinach are the bulk of the veggie matter and both are EXCELLENT laxatives. My plecos all eat it as a treat 2x a week ( peppermints, ALfBN, CLfBN, 66, 134, 168, 202, 333 whiptails even the small panaques 002,104, 169) and none of them are fat or bloated (except when full of eggs).

My geo's (leuco's, tocantins argyrostictus) gorge on it as do my mates orange heads and they are never irregular or bloated, just solid fish. Its an excellent all rounder and really brings out the colour of geos (gotta love that spirolina and astaxanthin).

If you were keeping Africans I'd double the amount of peas and spinach and maybe leave out the beefheart all together but its still a great starting point. give it a couple of weeks and you wont believe the extra vitality in your fish.