DIY hommade fish food (EASIER!)

Ok after some research I've determined the following: copepods eat algae, mysid shrimp eat copepods. Algae is salt water + sunlight + ammonia.

So someone explain to me why I can't feed my fish sunlight and a small amount of electricity?

get a fish bowl and fix up some salt water, add ammonia (any old ammonia will do, I'm sure you can find a way to get some)

sit it in the sun, and wait for it to turn that dreaded green color (in this case GREEN = GOOD!)

buy some copepods and put them in another tank with a heater and a bubblerock

feed the copepods green water until the tank has a slight green tinge, then less the next time once it clears.

In 3 weeks or so you should have a breeding population of copepods, time to buy your shrimp

in yet another aquarium (I'd really use a 20 here and split it in half) put live mysid shrimp (some small rock and some coral base) Feed 'em pods!

In a few weeks you'll have breeding populations of both Copepods and Mysid shrimp for the cost of initial stock, ammonia, time, effort, and sunlight!

Have I missed something here? Why aren't we all doing this?

 

Because mysis are a cold water species and it would get expensive to be able to sustain them (chillers). You would have to do it on a massive scale to come close to even making it worth it

 

and I couldn't stick 'em in the refridgerator and short out the lightswitch?

Scratch that, I just went back and checked my reading which recommends 75-78F Water temps
see the section on culturing mysids