Rinsing Frozen Foods?

[Notathumpa]

Do any, or all, of you rinse your frozen b4 adding to you tank? I have always ran RO water over the thawed food through a plastic tea strainer cause it just looked like too much liqiud and tiny stuff was in the food. I mostly feed Rod's but have used different brand cubes. I was told at an LFS that they didn't rinse! Am I losing valuable suspended food particles by rinsing, or am I better off rinsing, or is this a non-issue??

 

[laskopyre]

I rinse mine. I thaw it in a cup with tank water, then strain it into another cup through window screen. Lots of junk in that water they use to freeze them in.

 

[Thinslis]

I hear rinsing removes a lot of unwanted Phosphates. I always rinsed mine.

 

[Notathumpa]

I like the idea of thawing in tank water B4 straining!

 

[laskopyre]

Makes it easier. I just put a plastic cup in the tank, and fill it quarter full of tank water. Drop in the frozen cube. Let it thaw for about 5 minutes. Take an empty plastic cup, and put window screen over it. Pour out the contents of the other cup onto the screen. VOILA!! Clean mysis, brine, etc.... That water from the thawed stuff is cloudy and full of phosphates and who knows what.

 

[serpentman]

I depends on what you are feeding. Frozen mysis, brine, etc. are packed in solution and should be rinsed to remove oils, etc.

Complete foods like Rods, phyto, etc. should not be washed as they contain tiny food particles for filter feeders.

 

[Bowman]

Thanks Jeff I was going to say that.

 

[DEERE G]

The oils can really cut back on skimmer production for a little while after feedings. IME/IMO

 

[Notathumpa]

re tiny particles for filter feeders. Do you all feed frozen every day?

 

[serpentman]

delete

 

[serpentman]

No. My tank is predominantly SPS which don't require much supplemental feeding so I pretty much feed Spectrum pellets daily. I feed some homemade Rods-like mix once every couple of weeks.

My clowns, peppermint shrimp and snails breed often too so they contribute to the plankton pool.

 

[Jeff Trout]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15449307#post15449307 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by serpentman
I depends on what you are feeding. Frozen mysis, brine, etc. are packed in solution and should be rinsed to remove oils, etc.

Complete foods like Rods, phyto, etc. should not be washed as they contain tiny food particles for filter feeders.

+1

 

[Notathumpa]

Hmmmm. I am working on keeping organics in my tank to a minimum as I have occasional flare ups of cyano. My skimmer is making plenty of gunk and I've repositioned my circ pumps (5) for good water movement, so I think I'm good there. Cyano is not terrible, I just don't like it! I have a pretty small clean-up crew of maybe 12-15 hermits, 10 Nassarius, a sand sifting star, and a few various snails and my overall bioload is probably med high. I'm thinking I need way more clean-up help. I really don't overfeed so I'm looking for other poss. sources of organics that aren't being used quick enough by the system. Thought maybe residual from frozen might be part of the problem.

 

[laskopyre]

I had a small outbreak of cyano. I started straining the cubes and it went away. Definitely the frozen mysis and brine are pretty full of bad stuff.