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Re: SJO beef heart
RuevenM at aol_com wrote:
>
> Hi George,
>
> I'd be happy to give you the recipe. I would avoid the commercial
> beef heart mixes like the plague. If you look at them carefully, you will see
> alot of the fat from the heart in them and the heart pieces are cut way too
> large. Many fish will not eat the commercially made crap, so alot of people
> have been turned off beef heart today. Beef heart is so cheap that it really
> pays to make your own. Here's how I have made it for 30 years.
>
> Buy at least two whole hearts, maybe three. Cut away EVERYTHING that
> is not red meat -- fat, veins, tissue covering the red meat -- everything
> that you can. You will waste a good bit of red meat doing this but that is
> OK. You don't want to feed that undigestible stuff to the fish. Use a very
> good and very sharp carving knife so you can save as much of the good red
> stuff as possible. Take the red meat and chop it into stew meat size chunks.
> Put these in a blender or food processor with just a bit of water -- say just
> enough to reach the top of the pile of meat in the blender and that pile
> should maybe be 4 inches high at a time. Blend. You should have a very very
> very thick looking reddish gruel when finished. If it is not thick add a few
> more cuts of meat to blend or, if too thick to blend well, add a bit more
> water. What you DO NOT want is a watery soup. You want a thick thick
> old-fashioned Malt like consistancy. Pour all the blended heart into a LARGE
> mixing bowl. Now put the frozen popcorn shrimp in the blender and do the same
> thing. I use 1 one pound bag. Again, thick, thick, thick -- just enough water
> to allow blending. Pour the blended shrimp in with the blended heart. Now put
> 1/2 of a regular size bag of green peas in to be blended. Again keep it
> thick. When finished, pour these into the rapidly filling LARGE mixing bowl.
> Pour in one jar of Gerber's baby food carrots (made with water only) directly
> into the bowl. Add a tablespoon of Fleischman's wheat germ. Add 1/2
> teaspoon of liquid bird or reptile vitamins. Pour in 6 ounces of a good
> quality non-color enhancing flake food (earthworm flakes are GREAT!) and stir
> it all into a beautiful, smelly mess.
> Put a cup and a half of water in a pot and boil it. Add the 4
> individual packages of gelatin that come in a regular size box of Knox
> gelatin. Stir and melt. Then pour this liquid into the mixing bowl and stir
> well. You are ready to freeze it.
>
> Buy two 40 count boxes of very high quality 1 quart freezer storage
> plastic bags. You will pour about 1-2 cups of mix into each of these. Flatten
> the mix out inside the bag so that you have about 1/4 inch of flattened mix
> in each bag. Have a container that will allow you to stack the bags while
> working so that you can keep them flat. You don't want to put too much mix in
> each bag because when you go to use it, it will be too hard to break off
> small portions. Keep the layer thin in the bag so it will be easy to snap off
> a portion for feeding. Freeze all your bags and away you go.
>
> I make up Rosario LaCorte's salmon based food too. Instead of the
> beef heart, you use fresh salmon (2 lbs), canned white meat tuna fish packed
> in spring water (one regular sized can) and 1 pound of the popcorn or
> cocktail frozen, cleaned shrimp. Rosario uses about 1/2 teaspoon of spiralina
> powder too but I do not as I don't think the fish really like the taste of
> it. You can also use canned salmon but I prefer the fresh as it is not that
> expensive anymore. The rest of the process and the ingredients are the same
> as with the beef heart mix. I am undecided on the tuna fish. I have made it
> both ways and I think the fish like the stuff without tuna fish better, but
> that might just be me! For discus, I would just use the salmon and the other
> non- meat ingredients as discus have a thing for salmon. Go figure.
>
> On raising the blue gularis, I forgot to mention that I did 75% weekly
> water changes in the tanks for conditioning the breeders and on the fry.
> Needless to say, I was very gentle in making water changes with the fry. To
> this day, my water just has chlorine in it. One drop of chlorine remover and
> the chemical is gone! So it has always been easy for me to use water out of
> the tap. I would just put the drops in the adults' tank and then fill it up.
> With fry, I mixed the drops into a bucket of water and then gently poured it
> into the fry box or tank. One day, I know my "easy" water will be taken away,
> but it is nice while it lasts.
>
> Robert E.
> ---------------
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Thanks for the recipe Robert. I am definitely going to give it a try.
George
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