thoughts on freeze dryed food.

[Devaji108]

so here the story no LFS with in 100+ miles I have not found a place to order frozen or live food are a reasonable price. ( if you know plz do share)

I made DIY fish food with NLS pellets and 4 types of fish. feed flake as well.

have yet to get my fish to eat just pellets. a goal so I can auto feed while gone.

so I would like more options to feed thinking of freeze dyed mysis or krill.

so whats your thoughts. did a search not a whole lot came up. i hear how the mysis are handled after freeze drying can effect nutrient value? but the process it self is pretty good.

what vitamins should i soak them in while re hydrating?

thanks guys.

 

[Devaji108]

anyone?

 

[Airborne12B]

Hmmm, interesting. I'll follow along. I would love to have a bit more freedom to go out of town by setting an auto feeder. I haven't done so, because, I too worry about nutrient loss.

 

[HippieSmell]

I can't speak directly to fish food, but I'm pretty sure freeze dried human food retains the majority of nutrients. It's good enough for astronauts!

 

[Devaji108]

^ yeah that is my understanding as well...
my understanding is that its better =more nutrients than flake. is that correct?

 

[abIngenui]

I'm guessing the shipping is what blows the price out of proportion? Dr F&S doesn't seem to be too awful, so if you order a huge order then the shipping costs can be mitigated a little.

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[Reef Frog]

^ yeah that is my understanding as well...
my understanding is that its better =more nutrients than flake. is that correct?

Freeze dried fish food is often the entire organism - whether it be dried plankton or krill or dehydrated algae. So yes, the majority of nutrients are retained. I'm not an astronaut but have done quite well for 3 weeks at a time on mostly freeze dried food myself ! (But man oh man that first cheeseburger or pizza sure tastes good after eating that stuff)

Flake & pellet foods have different formulations and can vary quite a lot in quality and nutrition from total junk to good quality. However they are more likely to have binders, preservatives, other additives and non marine ingredients in the formulas. Some of these things may be perfectly benign but I like to avoid them whenever possible - for my tank residents as well as myself.

 

[soulpatch]

I run a mix of frozen food (LRS Reef Frenzy) but also make my own when I have time. I have a fish blender and will mix pellets, some nori, clam, shrimp, and some other odds and ends in with some selcon and garlic. I have a Dr. Tim's silicone freezer trays which make the cubes and I go from there. Fish go nuts for it.

 

[jd371]

I mostly feed black worms, LRF, and other assorted frozen, but I do add freeze dried mysis once and a while. The mysis are soaked in selcon and act like a sponge.

 

[Devaji108]

yeah I would like to try reef frenzy just no where to find it.
the fish in my 90 love my home made food but the clown goby and canary blenny don't seam to like it. think there just shy still.

anyone know the "best" flake food?

 

[soulpatch]

LRS will ship directly to you if you do not have a retailer around who sells it. Just an FYI...

 

[illumnae]

One thing to remember is that probably 70-90% of a mysis shrimp or bloodworm is water. When freeze dried, the nutrients are retained and the organism loses that 70-90% of water, being reduced to 10-15% of its original size. A fish would be used to eating a certain bulk of food to maintain itself - so in eating an equal amount of freeze dried vs frozen/fresh food, it actually takes in up to 10x the amount of nutrients it usually would. So even if some nutrients are lost in the process, I wouldn't be worried.

Another point to note from the above is to feed significantly less freeze dried than frozen or fresh food - otherwise the excess nutrients are just released back into the water with the fish waste and can foul your water pretty quick.

 

[vikinglord13]

Another point to note from the above is to feed significantly less freeze dried than frozen or fresh food - otherwise the excess nutrients are just released back into the water with the fish waste and can foul your water pretty quick.

It makes sense to just feed the same amount.

 

[Devaji108]

LRS will ship directly to you if you do not have a retailer around who sells it. Just an FYI...

hmmm that is a interesting option. I'll be contacting Larry to see what the shipping would be to wy.

 

[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

Resurrecting this thread, rather than start a new one, simply because I was looking for information on this subject and found this thread. I'm also a bit curious to see what other thoughts are out there; I would have though that there were more threads on this on RC, as it's a bit of a controversial issue in the FW world.

There's a school of thought around some freshwater keepers: living food (brine shrimp, mystis, etc.) is first frozen. Then if can either be sold as frozen food, or vacuum dried afterwards (ergo freeze dried) and sold that way.

For frozen food, the fact that its frozen makes shipping and storage somewhat troublesome, and obviously the vast majority of what you're buying is water. Freeze dried version of the same food is essentially the same thing, except much easier to deal with, and much better food/money ratio.

I think this makes sense. However, there's still a bias in me, as the last time I kept fish was 20+ years ago, when it was asserted that freeze drying destroys nutrients even more than freezing (of course, live food is always the best food. But again, in the era when I developed this bias people thought all fish needed to thrive was brine shrimp [small FW fish] and goldfish [big ones]. I was honestly shocked, coming back into fishkeeping, to see how opinions have changed on this).

Either way, back when I was planning an FW tank w/ a decent amount of fish I was thinking of mixing freeze dried prey (say, 10% brine shrimp, 20% black worms, 20% daphnia, 20% cyclops 30% mystis shrimp) as the staple (with added pellets, color enhancing foods, and veggies a few times a week). Part of me is thinking of keeping this for the (very few) fish I may have in my future reef, though I might change the prey (e.g. add krill).

 

[rgulrich]

IMHO not a bad plan at all. Better still if you do the occasional live food supplement.
Due to my work/commute schedule I feed a variety of pellets 4 times a day to a collection of anthias, chromis, cardinals, tangs, rabbit fish and whatnots with an auto feeder. They appear well fed, have good coloration, and their ages range from 10 years (purple tang) to 2 years (blue line goby) old. I try to provide one to two frozen food feedings a week, but it usually works out to that many a month...
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Ray

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[vikinglord13]

I read an article in a reef magazine recently (I can't find the dang thing so I can't cite it unfortunately) that talked about freeze-dried being some of the best options for aquarists. It talked about dehydrated foods destroying nutrients and that freeze drying does not.

 

[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

Resurrecting this thread yet again.......

... I also hope someday to have a FW Discus, tank, and am planning/gathering info. One resource* alleges that frozen fish food can sometimes be defrozen (unintentionally) as much as 5-6 times before it gets to the final consumer; a call to a manufacturer said that's normal and not a problem. An autopsy he did on a mysteriously dead discus showed food poisoning was the culprit (all his water conditions, etc. were fine), after which he stopped feeding frozen tubifex (a dirty worm anyway) and started his own freeze dried concoctions (which admittedly he sells). He believes there are cases when this brings parasites into his tanks, and claims he lost almost all his discus once years ago** likely because of bacteria introduced with frozen food, after which he stopped with frozen.

If manufacturers are that lackadaisical about defrosting, AFAIC frozen's out. That being said, I think it depends on the manufacturer's tolerance, the custody chain, and the distance. (I can't imagine, for instance, Hikari distributed in Japan as being anything besides perfectly fine. But a pack of Hikari in an out of the way country?). And I also can't imagine this is the norm; the norm is probably that it never defrosts, but (if this is true) some manufacturers have some level of planned-in defrosting tolerance.

Still, unless debunked, this has pushed me from "probably not frozen" to "definitely not frozen". IMO, YMMW, FWIW

* Chris Ingraham's "Discus World"; he is a major UK discus breeder (plymouth discus) and his book has lots of good advice. It's not God's Word on Discus but it's on par with listening to some of the best discus keepers out there. This book is his self-published Kindle book, and is pretty good for a self published/planned/edited work.

** note that adult discus retail starting around $120/fish in the US, where I'd imagine they are the cheapest compared to other countries. Given they're schooling fish who should be kept in groups of no less than 6, a discus hobbyist would be out at least $700, probably more.

 

[ReefTeacher]

Freeze dried and pellets are obviously very safe and nutritionally sound. The problem is that many fish will ignore them. I used to keep discus; they are very delicate and fussy. But in time I always got them to take freeze dried and pelleted foods. I have NEVER been able to get a copper band butterfly to take dry food. This goes for some other marines as well.

A good alternative to frozen fish food, is to freeze your own seafood. I live in New England now, where seafood is plentiful and fresh. I buy a pound of fresh live mussels for a couple of dollars and throw them in the freezer myself. I do the same with steamer clams, chopped squid, shrimp and scallop. I feed frozen Mysis and angel/butterfly formula once or twice a week just to round things out. Of course if you supermarket doesn't carry quality seafood; that could be a different story.

 

[Flaring Afro]

Do you not have a petsmart or petco? They both carry saltwater frozen cubes, and as said you can just use the seafood section of the grocery store with a little research on what to look for and mix.