# Gelatine Cubes



## Guest (Apr 2, 2013)

Hello members,

I've just started by piranha hobby, and I have had my baby piranha's in for 2 weeks now. As I've read that variation is the key to healthy fish, I feed them a wide variety of things:

- Shrimp
- Tuna
- White fish (cod, tapilla, etc.)
- Hikari floating pellets
- Turtle food (mix of dead & dried insects)
- Discuss sinking pellets 
- Once a week a treat (little bit of chicken or beef heart)

When feeding the fish/chicken/beefheart/shrimp, it is easy to remove the left overs because it is usually only a few, clearly visible chunks. Here is the problem though: The 2 kinds of pellets and the dried insects are really small, and get in between the gravel real easy. To remove the uneaten pieces I cause mayhem in the tank because I either have to do a water change after feeding (sucking up left overs with the hose above the gravel), or scoop up gravel with a net and take the pieces out, and then put the gravel back in. This is a lot more work & causes a lot more stress on the fish than just going in with a 'claw' and grabbing the big left over chucnks. As the pellets and insects contain a lot of vitamins that a pure fish/meat diet doesn't contain, I want to continue feeding them though.

I've read about people who make their own cubes with gelatine. Now here are my questions:

1. What is the structure of these cubes? Does it create less of a mess when I feed them the gelatine cubes? Can they just bite chuncks off of it, and whatever is left I can grab out with the 'claw'? Or does everything fall apart once they start eating anyways?

2. How do I go about this? Do I put all the food in the blender, add the gelatine? Or what exactly is the deal?

Thanks for reading & the advice


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## Ægir (Jan 21, 2006)

Have tried it in the past, and it just turns out to be a mess most times. Getting the ration of food and gelatin mix correct is difficult, and most times it just turns out as mush.

Best thing I have done is food process all of your ingredients, place a piece of eggcrate on a cookie sheet (wax paper over the cookie sheet helps) and smear the paste into the eggcrate. Place the cookie sheet in your freezer, and when its hard you have uniform frozen cubes.

Lightly thaw them in warm water before feeding.


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