Refreezing Frozen Fish Food

[Grumpyfish]

[Do any of you ever refreeze frozen food into smaller portions for feeding the tank?  I am thinking of thawing some frozen Mysis and Rod's Food, rinsing it as usual, and then refreezing it together into small cubes in one of those silicone ice cube trays.  Is that a bad idea?  Would the food spoil or be damaged by refreezing?  Would it be better to not thaw it out at all and just not worry about rinsing? ][To be clear, this would only be short term.  I would only be feeding like this when we're away from home.  We have a pet sitter who takes care of our other pets, and I was going to ask her to feed some frozen food to the fish so that they would get more than just pellets (via autofeeder) while we're away.  By making my own cubes this way, I figured I'd still be able to control the portions, and it would be easier on the pet sitter. ][Thanks!] 

 

[BrianC]

I have no idea but would be curious to see how this works for you. I heard from a member who went to MACNA they bought a popsicle-esq device that slowly drips the frozen food in... So, I assume it wouldn't be a problem. Some criticisms though. The frozen store food has very little water. I assume our fish don't like frozen dead things - only a guess. It might almost make more sense to just cut existing cubes rather than add ice to your tank. I hope you plan to cover the cubes in a sealed environment. Freezer burn and while contamination among food is slower in the freezer at least for smell it still happens....

 

[jccaclimber]

I regularly do this with my fish food, although I don't rinse (I need those nutrients!) and I have a lot more things in the mix.  I thaw all the ingredients, mix up a half gallon or so, then portion out into jars and freeze again.I was using martini ice cube trays to make cubes for a while and discovered a couple things:1) Fish food is hard to get out of the ice cube trays I picked.  The silicone ones would be easier.  Particularly with the PE which is a bit oily, the fish food cubes coated themselves in goo as they started to thaw, which made them stick, and they almost flexed rather than cracking out of the trays like standard water only ice cubes.2) After a while they would start to stick together in the freezer, although the fact that I had to slightly thaw them to get them out made this much worse.3) Include tongs to handle them with for the squeamish fish sitter, plus their hands won't smell like raw seafood after.4) As always, only leave in sight the appropriate amount of food for the duration of your stay.5) They do freezer burn.  This isn't normally an issue for me because I freeze a jar full (not cubes), but when I was still doing cubes they did frost over after a few weeks.6) Unless you're talking 5 cubes a day, I would just buy a pack of cube up PE and skip the rinsing.  I always instruct people to feed a bit less than I normally do anyways, so your nutrient input to the tank may not change that much.

 

[Grumpyfish]

After reading your comments, I think I'll skip the Rod's Food and just cut the cubes of frozen Mysis in half or quarters without thawing and rinsing.  The pet sitter comes twice a day when we're gone, so one partial cube twice a day should be plenty without adding too much waste to the tank.  Great idea on the tongs.  I hadn't thought of that.  I have some big tweezers that might work even better. Thanks for your advice.  This was very helpful.