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Flake food

Sachs(1955): Although one can keep the fish alive on dry food for a long time, one should occasionally try to at least once in a while some live food. He also describes how flake food was made in those days:
"The aquariumkeeper can also produce dried fishfood himself. To do so, he catches a large number of locusts(these animals are best caught, when the sun is low, since then they aren't very quick anymore). The captured locusts are placed in a closed can and killed and dried by heating the can in an oven at low heat. They are then crushed in a grinding cup. This vitaminrich food is the main component of our foodproduction. The other one tenth consists of dried and grinded salad leaves and crumbled and dried animalblood. The last one tenth is composed from of ground whitebread or beschuit, and a little bit of milk may be added. Shake it well and keep it dry."

Another recipe is given by Godefroy, 1957.
Take boiled and peeled shrimp, chop them up in small parts, and dry them fast. Mix it with some fine oakmeal. As other options he names the drying of Daphnia and scraped dried meat.

Janze(1970) states that when feeding flake food to local dutch fish(carplike), one should mix it with Sanal (Torula yeast), and had the following recommendations for feeding:
- Dried food absorbs water, so the fish need only a little bit
- Feed sparingly since the remains quickly pollute the water.
-Predators cannot be fed on flake food, since they only recognize moving creatures as such.
Sachs(1955) also described that dried food needs to be hydrated prior to feeding, but adds that fish otherwise will suffer negative consequences from it. He doesn't describe the exact consequences however. Godefroy(1957) does; "If dried food is fed often in small portions (more often than once a day) hydrating it isn't necessary, since then the fear of constipation or accidents due to a strong rise in volume isn't present". If you check out his recipe you will notice he adds bit of oakmeal to his dried food, so the effects can be related to the type of dried food the author refers to.

Hameeteman 1983 reports that vitamins are a crucial component in fish food, and that deficiencies occur most frequent in the winter. According to him when feeding solely flake food avitaminosis will also occur in the summer.

References:

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