Fish Food: Frozen or not?

The past week I have had several people warn me about both frozen and freeze dried food. I usually feed largely flake, pellets and algae wafers. I do feed frozen blood worms, brine shrimp and freeze dried tubifex worms every now and then maybe 2 to 3 times a week at most. I have always believed that feeding frozen was good for them. Is this ok or am I putting the health of my fish at risk?

I am also in the market for a good community flake if anyone has any recommendations?

 

Howzit Arno
Try AKWA flakes, they local so they cheaper than the imported ones but for some reason my fish go crazy for them.
I also feed Ocean Nutrition frozen artemia brine shrimp with garlic and frozen blood worms.

 

Hi Arno I have been using frozen blood worm for years and never had an issue. I have very large Oscars and Parrots and they go crazy for it. They only get once a week on a Sat or Sun.

I have also used tubiflex on and off over the years and used to grab a bag or 2 if I saw them whilst at a LFS but I cannot really say if they are good or bad. Internet says both. Apparently they can carry all sorts of diseases like TB etc...

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I think it depends on the manufacturer of the frozen food.
Ocean Nutrition has built up a reputation for quality, and I don't hesitate to feed it to my fish and shrimp.
My shrimp get Artemia with spirulina and garlic, while the community fish get a mixture of blood worm and Daphnia.

If someone would come up with frozen BBS, microworm and walter worms it would make raising fry much easier.
Perhaps in a pill sized tray, where you could decide on how many to feed at one session?

 

As mentioned, the only real risk and concern comes from the preparation process. If not properly prepared, the food could introduce disease or pests to the tank. In my time keeping fish, I've come across two brands that have been accused of doing as much, but no longer see them stocked.

It does help being aware of what and how you're feeding. Freeze dried foods should be soaked in water prior to feeding, as large volumes of too dry food can cause digesrive tract issues. Frozen food must be defrosted, remembering that if a fish is swallowing an ice block their bodies aren't warm enough to rapidly defrost it - again, digestion issues can occur.

Then it comes down to nutrition. Frozen bloodworms are not very nutritious, but are tasty and fish love them. Used as a treat they're great. Most other live foods are typically quite high protein, so be wary of excessively feeding them to herbivorous or omnivorous fish like pleco, livebearers, and some cichlids. As with everything, balance is key.

Regards,

 

That has really only been my biggest concern with regards to frozen blood worm or frozen food in general, that at any point during shipping and us purchasing it, it could have been defrosted some where along the way and then refrozen.

I usually just chuck in a half frozen cube into the tank quite frankly the Oscars dont realy care they just go for the entire cube frozen or not, ultimately spitting it out 20 seconds later and by that time its nicely defrosted for the rest of the tank mates

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There are two ways to tell this has occurred. One is that, when looking at the "cube" inside the packaging, all the contents it sitting towards one side of the packaging (normally these products are initially frozen lying flat). The second clue is the texture. During defrosting, the product releases most of its water. A re-frozen product is often as hard an an ice block due to the water forming a layer around everything, as opposed to the item containing the water itself and coming apart relatively easily.

Worst case scenario, the food will smell, frozen or not.

 

Thank you! Will definitely be more attentive to that in the future! Thank you for all the input!

 

PS: Don't ever forget that garlic flavored stuff in the boot of your car on top of a R1300 jacket........

 

I must admit that over time, with the rays, although I do use a large amount and variety of frozen foods, its all human consumption food like mussel, prawn, tilapia. sardine etc..

As these changes happened over the time that we have had the rays, we started seeing that all the fish go crazy for the little bits of different fish which float around after the rays eat and gradually I gave less and less bloodworms etc..

My clown loaches still enjoy a treat of bloodworms now and then but they wolf down anything that rays eat too
As for freeze dried, I have never really been a fan of freeze dried foods and haven't used for years

 

I have also taken to feeding cocktail shrimp and mussels. I chop it all up and thaw it out and they love it.

@MariaS have you ever used one of the sea food mixed packets that I see in stores?

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@David Kusner , me no... the food is too fine for any of the fish and I refuse to throw the frozen block in for them
About 4 years ago I lost my 35cm Flagtail almost straight after swallowing a frozen cube of blood worms
I think Cesar sometimes bought some of those for the Discus back then

 

indeed - common sense ... !eskom < cold chain

If you do feed frozen or live - make sure your have a healthy tank and good filtration and / or you are about to do a good size WC later the day or next morning.

Later Ferdie