Question about frozen foods

[bruce337]

I tried a little experiment and want to get everyone's thoughts. I used to mix a few frozen foods together on Monday in a tiny 1/8 cup Tupperware then feed with a baster watching to see all was consumed (LRS Reef Frenzy, Hikari bio-pure bloodworms, Hikara bio pure mysis, Hikari Angelfish mix.) I noticed my Nitrate would go up. I tried just plopping in 1/4 a square of a rotating of the afore mentioned foods nutrients went up more interestingly. I make sure all thats dropped in is eaten either way. same amount of food. thoughts? I only use pellets when i forget to thaw the frozen and im in a hurry so maybe 1x a month and all is eaten when i put it in. Nori maybe a thumb sized piece 2x a week to keep the angel from nipping on corals its gone by AM when I put i tin at 10 PM. Do you rinse, thaw, plop in frozen, pellet nori or flake feed your tank?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

How soon after you feed are you testing?

 

[Midrats]

I don't thaw my frozen food in water, and never in advance. It degrades quickly, and a lot of the nutrients end up in the "broth" and inaccessible to the fish. The Eheim drops Seaweed Extreme pellets when I'm not home to feed frozen.

 

[W0terMoist]

What I do is buy the large sheets of frozen mysis and break a piece off and toss it into a cup (I use a plastic measuring cup. No particular reason). I get a bit of tank water and baster the frozen food before the mysis comes apart and squirt the cloudy water in the sink (I only do this when getting a new chunk of mysis shrimp). I then take the frozen mass of mysis that's in the cup to the tank and de-thaw some if it with the tank water by blasting the mysis shrimp until some get unstuck from the main chunk. I then repeat this step until the fish are fed enough. Once done, I just toss the cup into my deep freeze where I keep the sheet of mysis shrimp making sure I don't leave any tank water in the cup since it is a pain to melt a whole bunch of tank water when trying to get to the mysis shrimp. I don't know if it is bad to re-freeze the outer layer of mysis.

I don't have any fish that eat nori, so I just feed mysis shrimp 5 times a week and the other two days are with Bug Bites brand tropical fish formula. I use the small pellet size since I have small fish.

I don't worry about excess mysis or pellets not getting eaten. I have a few snail species (nassarius snails do a great job at eating mysis and fish pellets since they are scavengers. Absolutely great at finding anything that doesn't get eaten), some hermits, emerald crabs, and a brittle star fish. They do a good job at eating any leftovers. My tank is a 45 gal AIO and has filtration out the wazoo by the way, so I don't mind there being fish food that goes uneaten by the fish.

 

[bruce337]

How soon after you feed are you testing?

usually next day for this experiment. Forgot to ask I heard live baby brine can bump Nitrates? I stopped with them for a week (was addling maybe 4 tbs every other day for the blueberry gorg and b/c fish/corals love them) so now not only have i started to drop in frozen but i have stopped live baby brine.

 

[bruce337]

What I do is buy the large sheets of frozen mysis and break a piece off and toss it into a cup (I use a plastic measuring cup. No particular reason). I get a bit of tank water and baster the frozen food before the mysis comes apart and squirt the cloudy water in the sink (I only do this when getting a new chunk of mysis shrimp). I then take the frozen mass of mysis that's in the cup to the tank and de-thaw some if it with the tank water by blasting the mysis shrimp until some get unstuck from the main chunk. I then repeat this step until the fish are fed enough. Once done, I just toss the cup into my deep freeze where I keep the sheet of mysis shrimp making sure I don't leave any tank water in the cup since it is a pain to melt a whole bunch of tank water when trying to get to the mysis shrimp. I don't know if it is bad to re-freeze the outer layer of mysis.

I don't have any fish that eat nori, so I just feed mysis shrimp 5 times a week and the other two days are with Bug Bites brand tropical fish formula. I use the small pellet size since I have small fish.

I don't worry about excess mysis or pellets not getting eaten. I have a few snail species (nassarius snails do a great job at eating mysis and fish pellets since they are scavengers. Absolutely great at finding anything that doesn't get eaten), some hermits, emerald crabs, and a brittle star fish. They do a good job at eating any leftovers. My tank is a 45 gal AIO and has filtration out the wazoo by the way, so I don't mind there being fish fish that goes uneaten by the fish.

yes love my 3 nassarius snails, cleaner shrimp, and 1 hermit plus my watchman gobi sand is clean and white as day one. I was trying to find a relationship between Nitrates and food and how food is added. I have weird unexplained spikes in Nitrates - haven't added anything to tank corals snails or fish; no ones dead or missing. cleaned canister sump thats for a 70g tank last month (do it every 6 mo) less food now (no more baby live brine) I've always run high on Nitrates - usually ~30. tested tonight 59 (so yeah its not next day I know) Corals are fine so I don't worry too much but i eventually want to do acros when i get it under control. phosphates ~.17 which is low for me historically, sal 1.024, temp 77/78, ph struggle to keep @ 8, cal 465-480, mg 1200 on average which is a tad low so i dose sometimes, alk 8-8.3 I tend to need to dose every 2 weeks or so to maintain, I do have significant evaporation i'm down about a gallon or 2 due to evaporation which I'll do a 10 gal water change tomorrow with RODI and red sea coral pro sat which should help my MG and ALK and bring down nitrates a lil. 55 gal tanks been up 2 years, 2 clowns, 1 gamma, 2 watchman gobies, chromis, coral beauty 1 sm crab 5 astrea snail, 5 small bumblebee, 3 nassarus snail, plate coral, sm duncan lg blueberry gorg mushooms, leather coral bubble wall hammer asterospithica coral small, sun coral

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have a theory that rinsing frozen foods rinses away potassium that is released when cells burst on freezing, causing an imbalance and the potential long term need for potassium that may not exist in other scenarios.

I don't recommend rinsing in general, unless you have a specific reason to do so.

 

[bruce337]

I have a theory that rinsing frozen foods rinses away potassium that is released when cells burst on freezing, causing an imbalance and the potential long term need for potassium that may not exist in other scenarios.

I don't recommend rinsing in general, unless you have a specific reason to do so.

yeah i was wondering if rinsing lowers nutritional value