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. Although they are full of healthy ingredients, it would be nice to treat your fish occasionally to a tasty roast chicken dinner. You should also consider frozen fish foods. This premium-grade fish food is packed with high-quality proteins, healthy fatty acids, and gut-loaded vitamins. Frozen foods are next to live foods and are therefore irresistible for those with restricted diets or animals with decreased appetites. They can be used to increase the variety and nutritional content of your fish’s food, and they are often used by breeders to condition their fish for spawning.
Frozen foods are usually made from whole ingredients and flash frozen to preserve as many nutrients as possible. You can purchase frozen fish food from your local fish store, pet shop, or online stores. 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.
For quick and easy feeding, frozen fish foods are packaged in individual cubes.
Different types of frozen fish food
For
Meat lovers
Frozen bloodworms, which are similar to betta fish, pufferfish and loaches, are always a big hit. “Bloodworms”, actually midge flies larvae, are found in all kinds of freshwater bodies. They’re commonly eaten by fish and amphibians as well as aquatic insects. The hemoglobin in their bodies is what gives them their bright red color. This is not artificial dye. Frozen bloodworms can be purchased in a variety of sizes, including regular, jumbo and mini. This will allow you to choose the size that suits your fish best. 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 fish, and Apistogramma cichlids) can be prone to bloating and constipation if they consume too much protein and not enough fiber. Frozen brine shrimp is a great way to increase their roughage. The Artemia brine shrimp is a 0.4-inch (1 cm) aquatic crustacean that is widely used in the aquarium hobby as fish food. Its exoskeleton is made of tough chitin, which is not readily digested by most animals, so it acts like fiber and can help your fish more easily pass their waste. 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 food made from brine shrimps and other crustaceans may help your fish’s digestion system run more smoothly.
Filter-feeders can often not eat large frozen foods due to their size. Instead, consider giving them small foods like frozen daphnias and cyclops. These tiny freshwater crustaceans are between 0.02-0.2inches (0.5-5mm), with cyclops being the smaller of the two. These crustaceans are delicious and rich in protein. They also have exoskeletons which aid with digestion. We recommend freezing baby brine shrimp for babies. They are just 450 microns long. 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-Brine shrimp is a great food to feed your fish fry in order to increase their survival rate and healthy growth.
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. You may have to go to the grocery store to buy frozen fish foods that are human-sized, such as prawns, cocktail shrimps, and fish fillets. Also, certain pufferfish require hard shells in their diet to file down their ever-growing teeth, so look for frozen clams and oysters for them to crunch on.
Frozen Fish Foods: How to Feed them
There are several methods that are commonly used to feed frozen foods, depending on how many fish and tanks you have. Dropping a cube, or piece of frozen food slab, directly into your aquarium will make it easy for fish to start eating 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 of frozen bloodworms in a worm feeder cone to help contain the worms and make less of a mess in the 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. Refrigerate any frozen food once it has been thawed at ambient temperature. This is because bacteria growth can have started and could have contaminated the fish food. To avoid food waste and to not upset your family members or roommates, set a timer.
Frequently Asked Questions about Frozen Fish Food
How often should you feed frozen fish food?
It all depends on what you prefer and how your fish needs to be cared for. Frozen foods can be fed to common omnivores, such as community fish, anywhere from once a fortnight to multiple times per week. Some fish, such as pufferfish and African dwarf frogs may not eat frozen food. If possible, try to vary your fish’s diet with a mix of frozen, freeze-dried, gel, live, and prepared foods (e.g., flakes and wafers) to make sure they get all the necessary nutrients they need to live a healthy and long life.
How much frozen food should I feed? This is a hard question to answer because different fish have different appetites, and some species are faster eaters than others. The two main things to look at are 1) how skinny or fat your fish are and 2) how much excess food is leftover. Ideally, your fish should have slightly rounded abdomens. You can decrease the amount of food they eat if they have a large stomach. If their belly is too full, increase the size of the meals. You can also remove any extra frozen food that your fish have left on the ground for several hours. A cube of bloodworms may not be enough for one betta fish. If it does, the entire cube will need to be thawed. For more details on how much to feed your fish, read our full article here.
What should I do if my fish refuses other 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.