How to Feed Frozen Fish Food to Your Aquarium
Feeding only fish flakes or wafers to your aquarium fish is like the human equivalent of only eating protein bars every day. They are nutritious, but wouldn’t it be great to treat your fish to a delicious roast chicken dinner once in a while? You should also consider frozen fish foods. These premium-grade fish foods are rich in high-quality proteins, healthy fat acids, and gut-loaded vitamin. Frozen foods are next to live foods and are therefore irresistible for those with restricted diets or animals with decreased appetites. They are an excellent way to provide more variety and nutrition to your fish’s diet, and breeders often use them to condition their fish for spawning.
Frozen foods usually consist of whole ingredients that are flash frozen to retain as much of the original nutrients as possible and destroy any pathogens. Frozen fish food can be purchased at your local pet shop, fish shop, or online. They come conveniently packaged in individual cubes or as large frozen slabs that you can break apart into smaller pieces. In this next section, let’s take a look at the different kinds of frozen foods you can buy and which ones are best suited for your fish.
Frozen fish foods are often packaged in individual cubes for quick and easy feedings.
Different types of frozen fish foods
For
Meat lovers
Like betta and pufferfish, frozen bloodworms are a hit with many species, including loaches, betta, pufferfish, and betta fish. “Bloodworms”, which are actually larvae of midge fly flies, can be found in freshwater bodies. They are often eaten by aquatic insects, fish, amphibians and other animals. Their bright red coloration is not caused by an artificial dye but rather naturally comes from the hemoglobin inside their bodies. To best suit your fish’s needs, you can purchase frozen bloodworms in regular and jumbo sizes. You can also try frozen tubifex, which are great for corydoras or other fish to breed with.
Dwarf puffers like frozen bloodworms. However, they should eat other foods to maintain their health.
Certain fish like goldfish, betta and Apistogramma Cyclids may be susceptible to constipation and bloating if they consume too many protein and not enough fiber. To add more roughage into their diet, we recommend frozen brine shrimp. Artemia brine shrimp, a 0.4 inch (1 cm) aquatic crustacean, is popular in aquarium hobby as fish food. Its exoskeleton, made of tough chitin that is difficult to digest by most animals, acts as fiber, helping your fish move their waste easier. For an extra boost in vitamins and natural color enhancement, you can also feed frozen spirulina brine shrimp, which consists of brine shrimp that were gut-loaded with nutrient-rich spirulina algae.
Fish foods made with brine shrimps or other crustaceans can make your fish’s digestive systems more efficient.
Filter feeders and nano fish can’t eat larger frozen foods. They are too big to swallow and hard to eat, so you might consider giving them smaller food like frozen daphnia or cyclops. These tiny freshwater crustaceans measure 0.02-0.2 inches (0.5-5mm), with the cyclops being slightly smaller. They are a great source of protein and, like brine shrimps, have exoskeletons to aid in digestion. Frozen baby brine shrimp are a great option for baby fry. These shrimp are only 450 millimeters in size. Baby brine shrimp can be different than adult brine shrimp, as they retain their yolk sacs. These yolk sacs are rich in healthy fats that are great for young fish.
Baby salt shrimp is an excellent food for fish fry that will increase their health and survival rate.
If you have larger and more complex fish, it is best to choose frozen fish foods that are richer in ingredients like mysis shrimp, silversides, and krill. If you have monster fish, you may need to start shopping at the grocery store for human-sized foods like frozen cocktail shrimp, prawns, and fish fillets. For their teeth to grow, some pufferfish require hard shells. So, look out for frozen oysters or clams.
How to Feed Frozen Fish Foods
There are many methods to feed frozen foods. It all depends on how many fish you have. Dropping a cube or a piece of frozen food into an aquarium is the easiest. It will quickly thaw so that fish can begin to eat it. To slow down the release of the food, some people prefer to place it in a cone called a worm feeder. This will prevent any fish that are the fastest or largest from eating the entire cube.
Place a cube frozen bloodworms into a cone worm feeder to keep them contained and less messy in your aquarium.
Other fish keepers prefer to defrost the cubes in a small jar of tank water for a few minutes and then feed the liquid using a pipette or turkey baster. This method is great for feeding many fish at once or targeting certain fish who are struggling during mealtimes. We recommend that you freeze any frozen food, and then add some vitamin supplements to your fish to increase their immunity and brightness.
If your fish eats only frozen and live foods, we recommend that you add multivitamins to help prevent any nutritional deficiencies.
Frozen food should not be left at room temperature more than 30 mins. Otherwise it could start to smell and spoil. Also, do not refreeze any frozen food that has already been thawed at room temperature because bacteria growth may have started and contaminated the fish food. Set a timer if needed to avoid wasting food and upsetting your family or roommates.
Frequently Asked Question about Frozen Food
How often should frozen fish food be fed?
It depends on your preference and your fish’s care requirements. For typical omnivores or community fish, you can feed frozen foods anywhere from once a week to several times a week. If they are picky eaters like African dwarf frogs and pufferfish, they might refuse to eat any other food than frozen or live foods. To ensure that your fish has all the nutrients they need for a long and healthy life, you should try to mix frozen, freeze-dried gel, live, gel, prepared and live foods as much as possible.
How much frozen food do I need? This question is difficult because different fish have different appetites. Some species are more efficient at eating than others. You should first consider how thin or fat your fish are, and then how much food you have left over. Ideally, your fish should have slightly rounded abdomens. If their bellies look too swollen, consider decreasing the amount of food you feed, and if their bellies are sunken in, consider increasing the portion size. If your fish leave a lot of frozen food on the ground after they are fed, you can remove it and give them less the next time. If you have only one betta fish, it may take too many bloodworms to feed one fish. You can either cut off a portion of the cube or purchase a slab that is easier to split into smaller pieces. Read our complete article for more information on feeding your fish.
What happens if my fish refuses food other than frozen foods? Mixing pellets with frozen bloodworms can help your fish eat other foods. Gradually increase the amount of pellets to the bloodworms until the fish is able to eat the pellets by themselves. You can also try giving your fish a fast for between 2-7 days to increase their appetite and make them more open to trying new things.
Frozen fish food is a great way to give your fish more variety. They don’t dissolve in the aquarium water, so they are easy to feed. Here are 5 high-quality fish food options that will expand the palette of your fish.