Do It Yourself Medicated Gel Food

Here is an easy homemade gel food recipe that makes about 5 ounces of gel food.

Ingredients
1 Pack Unflavored Gelatine
1 Tbsp Water (bottled, filtered/dechlorinated)
2 Sardines (about 1/4 of a 3.75 ounce can)
1 jar Babyfood peas (no sugar or salt added)
1 Tab Lactobacillus Acidophilus
Kanaplex (kanamycin sulfate)

Place the Acidophilus tab in 1 T water to soak. You may need to use a spoon to crush it so it dissolves totally.

Finely chop sardines and mix with babyfood peas in a microwave container and bring to a boil.

Stir in gelatine and stir until dissolved.

After mixture has cooled down to where it's warm, stir in Acidophilus mixture and stir until well mixed. You will need two flat containers for the gel food. One for the medicated food and the other for the non-medicated food.

Medicated Food: Unless you have a lot of fish that need medicated food, you won't need to medicate the entire batch of food. In a small dish, reserve as many tablespoons of food as it will take to feed your fish medicated food two meals a day for a week to 10 days. Add the same number of scoops of Kanaplex as you have tablespoons of gel food and mix thoroughly.

Pour the remainder of the non-medicated gel into a separate flat dish.

Gel should be about 1/4" thick.

Refrigerate until set.

Cut into squares. I leave out no more than a week's worth of gel in a plastic zipper bag and store in the refrigerator. The rest I freeze between layers of plastic wrap. When frozen, I store in the freezer in ziplock bags (each holding about a week of food).

Note: you can also use this recipe to dose other antibiotics:

metronidazole (Flagyl): Seachem makes a powdered metronidazole that is dosed in the same manner as kanaplex. Or if you have metronidazole tablets, crush them into a powder and the dose is 250mg of metronidazole per 25 grams of food.
tetracycline: the dose is 250mg tetracycline per 100 grams of food.
minocycline (Maracyn 2): the dose is 250mg minocycline per 100 grams of food. This works out to three packets of maracyn two per rounded tablespoon of food. This food is not very palatable and fish may not eat it.
erythromicin (Maracyn 1): the dose is 500mg erythromicin per 150 grams of food, fed for 10 days. Note this antibiotic primarily affects gram positive bacteria, so it would not be my first choice of an antibiotic for fish.
levamisole hydrochloride: the dose is 1.8 grams per pound of food or .4 grams per 100 grams of food. Treats intestional roundworms (e.g. Capillaria, Eustronggylides, Camallanus, and Contracaecum). 1, 2
Nutritional Breakout per 10 grams food
54% Protein (1.1 grams)
10% Fat (0.21 grams)
5% Ash (0.1 grams)
31% Carbohydrate (0.6 grams) [8% Fiber (0.2 grams), 13% Sugars (0.3 grams), 10% Complex (0.2 grams)]

6.6 Calories per 10 g food

Minerals
7.9 mg Calcium, Ca
0.1 mg Iron, Fe
1.8 mg Magnesium, Mg
11.5 mg Phosphorus, P
15.5 mg Potassium, K
9.7 mg Sodium, Na
0.05 mg Zinc, Zn
0.01 mg Copper, Cu
0.002 mg Manganese, Mn
0.9 mcg Selenium, Se

Vitamins
0.6 mg Vitamin C, total ascorbic acid
0.01 mg Thiamin
0.01 mg Riboflavin
0.2 mg Niacin
0.03 mg Pantothenic acid
0.01 mg Vitamin B-6
2.3 mcg Folate, total
0.1 mcg Vitamin B-12
38.1 IU Vitamin A, IU
0.04 mg Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)
4.4 IU Vitamin D
1.2 mcg Vitamin K (phylloquinone)

Fatty Acids (*=Essential)
0.03 g Saturated Fats
0.07 g Unsaturated fats
0.03 g Omega 3 linolenic acid *
0.07 g Omega 6 linoleic acid
2.3 mg Cholesterol

Amino Acids (*=Essential)
0.01 g Tryptophan *
0.03 g Threonine *
0.03 g Isoleucine *
0.05 g Leucine *
0.06 g Lysine *
0.02 g Methionine *
0.01 g Cystine
0.03 g Phenylalanine *
0.02 g Tyrosine
0.03 g Valine *
0.06 g Arginine *
0.02 g Histidine *
0.04 g Alanine
0.07 g Aspartic acid
0.10 g Glutamic acid
0.03 g Glycine
0.03 g Proline
0.03 g Serine

Other
21.2 mcg Beta Carotene
0 mcg Cryptoxanthin, beta
117.4 mcg Lutein + zeaxanthin

Rick