Frozen fish food unfrozen??

[FroggyFox]

Hey all...I have some questions about frozen foods and how you feed them.

First of all...if you get the kind that is cubed ( think most of it is right?) do you feed all of your tanks the same thing or just break the cubes up and only feed part of it? Do you thaw the food in a little dish and then dump the dish in? Do you thaw it and then feed it to the tanks through a syringe? Have you found any creative ways of doing this? My roommate tends to smack it against the counter and grab a piece of the brine shrimp for her puffers and not a whole cube, and I'd been grabbing a whole cube and feeding most of it to my 46, then some to each of my other tanks until it was gone.

AND question #2 I took a package of frozen food out of the freezer...was showing my parents how neat it was and how much the fish love it...and accidentally set the package down and forgot about it overnight!! I popped it back in the freezer the next morning, but do you think it'll be ok to feed or should I just toss it and not risk it fouling my tanks or making my fish sick? The bummer of it is that out of like 20 cubes I'd only used 3 of them....so that's such a waste...but of course it was my fault for leaving it out

 

[Cichlid-Man]

I take a small paper bathroom cup (or plastic w/e) and thaw the cube in tank water. After its thawed i pour it all in. Right now i only feed one tank frozen stuff so i don't distribute it around. 1 cube for 1 tank is what i do. Especially if you have discus pigs.

Not sure about question 2. Was it still cold when you found it?

 

[FroggyFox]

uh...didn't feel real cold, but its not the middle of summer here either. The house wouldn't have gotten over about 75 during the night, probably closer to 65.

 

[namukoby]

It is bacteria that causes spoilage. If your frozen fod is like mine, in those little vacuum packed cubes, there is little chance of bacteria getting in. Even if there is bacteria in the cubes, or if the food starts to break down it would take longer to spoil than a few hours. It will be fine.

I usually just cut a cube in half (I don't have enough fish to eat a whole one at once) and just drop it in the tank as is. It thaws quickly, and the fish just pick the thawed pieces off of the cube.

 

[zombiegrrll]

i feed 1 cubr brine shrimp and 1 or 2 bloodworm cubes let it thaw in a paper cup them pour it in the tank, and they all swarm to it .

 

[Leopardess]

I wouldn't feed it no. It's a meat product. I wouldn't take my chances on it harming the fish.

That said, try to find food that isn't in those cubes. They make it harder to portion out. Best frozen food on earth is Hikaris frozen bloodworms; they come in flats. You just break off the portion you want.

Then, I keep plastic cups that don't get used for anything else. Fill them with warm water and plob the food in. Wait until it thaws. Frozen, cold food in a fish belly is a recipe for unhappiness. Then just pour it in slowly and make sure they eat whats in there before dumping more in.

Hikari's frozen baby brine shrimp are good too. Same method.

One of the more knowledgeable members on another board said that she had trouble with fish dying/getting sick after feeding them food that was freezer burnt. Don't know how or why, but its something to think about. I wrap the food containers in aluminum foil or ziploc baggies to help it stay fresh.

 

[FroggyFox]

Well I guess that would be one pro for the cubed food...because its like medicine...each cube is in a little vaccum sealed bubble. If a cube was a good size for the amount of food you wanted that'd probably be best eh?

It is a meat product...admittedly I dont know much about the chemistry of what makes something go "bad" but I'm still wavering a bit. I've eaten cooked meat that was left out overnight (say on pizza or something) I know gross but I'm still alive. Admittedly I'm not a fish...and it wasn't insects or little critters in a sauce that was left out overnight that I ate...(ok I almost made myself gag lol) Anyone else convince me one way or the other??

 

[Leopardess]

I haven't seen Hikari in cubes that I can remember and the worms seem a lot "fresher" (ew) than the other brands I've tried. They also tend to be redder, plumper, and longer. If the cubes are the exact size you want, then sure. I tend to feed different size meals a lot, to a lot of different tanks and it's easier not to melt 5 cubes. Sometimes the worms are just an appetizer, other times its the whole meal. The flats are also often a better deal price-wise.

Hungry anyone?

 

[FroggyFox]

Well I was so excited about these ones I got...it was actually 4 different blends of fish food like 5 cubes of each on the same one...bloodworms, and then some artemia and daphnia etc, then brine shrimp and spirulina algae and I dont remember what the other one was...but the fish all really seemed to love the bloodworms a lot...and the little artemia thingies too. I'll see if I can try the hikari bloodworms now that i know who loves them.

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

I went to Friendly's tonite to have watermelon sherbet with sprinkles, and eating too fast made my "brain freeze". Ouch. I wonder if that happens to fish when we feed them frozen food that had not quite warmed up yet...

 

[Leopardess]

On the subject of the cubes being sealed...mine will become shriveled up inside (read: garbage) if I leave them in the freezer too long. They get totally freezer burnt. If it stays sealed 100%, it shouldn't have done that, right?

 

[FroggyFox]

I'd say thats a pretty safe assumption....

 

[Lotus]

I usually get some kind of cubes. I think I know the ones Froggy has, I think they're called Gum Drops (odd name).

I have a couple of shot glasses I use for fishy stuff, and put a cube in there with some water and let it thaw. I then use a mini turkey baster to feed to each tank (the mini ones are more precise in dosing, I get them at the 99 cent store).

This evening as I was feeding the fish, I asked Ecotank if he wanted some bloodworms in the chocolate pudding he was making.. ya know, kinda like fruit bits in Jello

If the stuff has defrosted, I'd be worried about using it. Maybe use it up quickly, like you would with frozen meats. Having said that, I've had packs of food that have gotten a little defrosted, or showed evidence of having been thawed/refrozen at the store, and never had any problems. I believe most are either pasturized or otherwise treated to remove most microorganisms.

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

Yeah I think fish in the wild aren't so concerned about putting the turkey away on Thanksgiving between the lunch feast and the dinner feast. Remember, these are wild animals we have in our little glass boxes. They try to eat poop people. I would not hesitate to put the thawed food back in the freezer.

 

[bpc75]

^^^troll^^^

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

^^^childish namecaller^^^

 

[bpc75]

Do you think fish in the wild would rather have live or dead food? I'd go with live. It's tough catching fish with dead bait for example (from the fisherman in me).

Spoiled food might upset the fish's digestion. IMHO, I would not chance it.

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

so what exactly DO scavengers eat?

Have you ever seen what happens to a dead fish in the tank? Or do you net them all out and sterilize the water when a fish dies?...

 

[bpc75]

catfish for example. Crayfish, snails smaller fish.

We could go back and forth about this all day. My troll comment was a reaction to how you worded your reply. Sounded semi- trollish to me.

 

[FroggyFox]

boys....really. Both of your points are valid.

The question is really if the food was "spoiled" from being left at room temperature and unthawing. I kind of look at it like a frozen meat that I took out to unthaw and cook for dinner sometime in the afternoon...and then we decided to go out to eat instead so the thawed meat goes back into the freezer, or into the fridge for tomorrow's dinner.

I took a closer look at the package this morning, looks like one of the rows on the end leaked out a bit, package was wet (well not wet, its been in the freezer but I could tell where it WAS wet)...but all the other cubes looked like they were still sealed (nothing oozed between them) SO I unthawed and fed two cubes of the stuff. Will take a good look at everyone tonight and see how they are...if they're good then I'll just make a point of using up some of the cubes that look fine over the next week or so and then trash the rest.