Refreezing Frozen Foods

[ellebelle]

I'm going away for 2 months, and I want to make it really easy for my roommate to feed my fish exactly the right amount of food. To that end, I'm making her little feeding cubes. Basically, I want to unfeeze and rinse a bunch of mysis and probably some of the refrigerated zooplankton, dose it with some garlic, and refreeze it in RO/DI water so she can essentially just dump it into the tank. Is there any reason why I couldn't do this?

PS: For those that are wondering, I'll be in England briefly, but mostly Italy and Kenya for the two months.

 

[fritz]

I follow the rules of shellfish / seafood. If it isn't safe to do with them, then I don't do it.

 

[crox99]

I do it all the times and I never had any problems. BTW where in Italy are you going?

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Well I have never had it shipped to me but I would imagine that it defrosts in transit then you put it in the freezer after that and re-freeze it, I would say as long as it stays at a "refrigerated temp" it should be ok.

 

[PalmTree]

I do it all the time. Never had any issues. I'm sure it should be fine. Have a great trip!

 

[manyfish]

teacher your roommate to and water to the sump or tank,if use ro/di water make sure you use a 48g rubbermaid to hold water

 

[jhale]

that's how I make my own food mix, so far the fish have been fine...

have a great trip

 

[KathyC]

Lissa, supposedly as long as there are still ice crystals in something that has been partially defrosted, 'they' say it is safe to refreeze.. (that goes for humans, wouldn't think it would hurt fish in that case.

But here is another thought..I usually blast my frozen mysis apart with a hammer & clean screwdriver so I have a week to 10 days worth at a time. What if you just make up the other food that you want that isn't already frozen and then add a 'chunk' of the frozen mysis to each package and pop it back in the freezer? Perhaps she can rinse each time before adding to the tank..or she could add 2 seperate cubes & rinse just the mysis?

 

[ellebelle]

I'm basically trying to avoid the rinsing step of this whole process for her. Last time I went away, I just had her dump a small amount of pellets in the tank once per day. The fish were fine, but the corals suffered a little for it as they couldn't "grab" the particulate matter in the water as easily. With the frozen food, I find I have to spot feed far less often. You can see in my tank thread how pale Eric's lobo got in my tank last time I was gone with only pellets to eat.

Why is frozen food suspended in that horrible phosphate laden stuff in the first place? Why wouldn't companies just use purified water?

 

[House of Laughter]

Depending on the food and their skeletal system, refreezing isn't recommended.

Each animal comes with it's own oil base and "juices" that are benificial when left frozen and fed defrosted. The skeletal system of most, if not all of these animals are very very fragile. Once they are thawed and refrozed, those skelatal structures break and the "juices" can escape the animal body during the second cycle of defrosting.

So, in short, you're diluting the nutritional value 2x by doing this. What, exactly, is the value of that? I have no idea, but better the animals ingest the natural juices of the food rather than relying on your skimmer to skim it out.

With the group buy food we use (e.pacifica and e.relicta mysis and plankton) I have never rinsed the food (it's frozen in fresh sea water) and seen any algae problems from doing so.

HTH<

house

 

[scumonkey]

With the group buy food we use (e.pacifica and e.relicta mysis and plankton) I have never rinsed the food (it's frozen in fresh sea water) and seen any algae problems from doing so.

I love the GB shrimp....but i've been rinsing it.
Do you have any idea of the Phosphate content without the washing?

 

[digitalreefer]

Well, if the GB food is frozen in fresh sea water, this negates the problem. I've been washing it, but if you think it's okay, I could just chop it up into little squares for her to dump in.

(This is ellebelle, not digitalreefer. Oops.)

 

[House of Laughter]

I love the GB shrimp....but i've been rinsing it.
Do you have any idea of the Phosphate content without the washing?

Scu,

I don't have any idea, but I have NEVER washed it and have never had a phosphate problem (that I am able to detect - I don't own a hanna Meter).

House