Do you feed Frozen food?

[inDcreations]

Most of my friends in the hobby almost exclusively feed frozen food in their aquariums with some sprinkles of dry food/ nori strips here and there. What does everyone else do? If you don't feed frozen why not? Is anyone able to exclusively feed live??

 

[Pete_the_Puma]

Dry pellets in automatic feeder, small amounts 3 times per day. Frozen cubes anywhere from every 3 days to 2 a day depending on my mood and the nitrate/phosphates in my tank.

 

[Jimbo662]

I do a mix of pellets twice a day with the AFS and frozen cubes for dinner.

 

[andrewkw]

If I didn't have to order frozen food and have it shipped I would exclusively feed frozen. Since I live in the middle of no where these days I limit frozen feedings to about 2-3 times a week and dry food the rest of the time. I actually used up a container of pellets for the first time in 10+ years (previously they would always expire).

I will say the quality of pelletized food has certainly gotten better. I really like Vitalis pellets as they still contain a lot of moisture, they smell fresher and are not baked. PE Mysis pellets are also great, as well as things like new life spectrum ect. That being said I still prefer to feed something like LRS that has chunks of real seafood, or even just straight pe mysis.

I will say I have not seen a difference in fish health going to a more dry diet vs an exclusively frozen. I still prefer to feed the frozen though. An added bonus is all the juices from the defrosted frozen food feed the corals. This effect is far less in cleaner dry food.

 

[inDcreations]

@andrewkw ah yeah, thats annoying to have to get everything shipped and yeah i'm used to my dry stuff expiring! Have you tried some diy frozen from a nearby market? I haven't experimented tooooo much with diy recipes but I know some good ones are out there.

 

[MTBake]

I feed pellets 3 times a day with an automatic feeder. I also feed frozen once to twice per day. Rod's Food and LRS Reef Frenzy are my favorite frozen foods.

 

[Hemmdog]

Pe mysis & hakari mysis 2 cubes am & pm, LRS reef food once a week, Hakari reef riot every other week. Reef roids once a week.

 

[andrewkw]

@andrewkw ah yeah, thats annoying to have to get everything shipped and yeah i'm used to my dry stuff expiring! Have you tried some diy frozen from a nearby market? I haven't experimented tooooo much with diy recipes but I know some good ones are out there.

Too much work / cost / mess / not as high quality as high quality frozen food. Even with the difficulties it's still easier for me to get frozen food. Obviously any frozen food adds phosphates but it can be used more so as a preservative in human food.

 

[Silver14SS]

Frozen food only, I made it easy by having a mini fridge with freezer in the same room as the tank. I divide it up into 2oz condiment cups with lids.

 

[dwest]

Pellets 3 times (nls currently) per day with auto feeder, nori soaked with selcon once a day, frozen (rods or LRS) once a day. Very infrequently I toss in some flake. Lots of pods and some gha in my tank as well for grazing. I’ve adapted this schedule as I travel about one week per month. The weeks that I am gone, the pellets keep them fed.

 

[BeejReef]

one cube in the a.m., another in the p.m. Usually mix in a little selcon and pellet or flake just to keep them eating it for when we travel and have to use auto feeder. Usually do a coral feeding the day before wc.

 

[PYRU]

Right now I don't have to feed frozen. The fish I have in waiting eat nori, nls, & omega one. Once I get the rest of my stock I'll probably be a cube a day plus frozen shrimp etc.

 

[inDcreations]

Right now I don't have to feed frozen. The fish I have in waiting eat nori, nls, & omega one. Once I get the rest of my stock I'll probably be a cube a day plus frozen shrimp etc.

Thats a good method! Ive only ever had a couple fish i couldn't get to try dry food at all and I'd have mini panic attacks if i was out of town for long with unreliable helpers

 

[Mr Fishface]

I feed algae strips 4-5 days a week with frozen about every 3-4 days. I do flake or pellet food once per week. I mix up frozen so its usually a mysis and krill blend, some for the small fish and some for the bigger ones.

 

[Crabs McJones]

I feed exclusively frozen food from LRS and put up a couple pieces of Nori for the algae grazers.

 

[Flippers4pups]

LRS reef frenzy here. Rods when I can't get LRS. Nori once a week.

 

[Auquanut]

I would exclusively feed frozen foods (I use Hikari) and nori, but my poor engineer gobies would starve if they didn't get their pellets.

 

[eggwater]

LRS reef frenzy nano, oyster feast and ROE (reef nutrition) and occasionally reefroids. I prefer the LRS nano over regular reef frenzy because of smaller chunks. Don’t have any tangs now but if I did, I’d feed them nori as well

 

[Cell]

In general, mostly pellets and flakes on weekdays and frozen on weekends.

 

[vanpire]

I make my own frozen food, and my fish are fat and happy. Used LRS but my LFS raised the prices to $24/8oz and that got expensive when you have 10 large fish and 8 medium ones.

Making my own frozen food comes out to about $15/lb and I make about 10 lbs which lasts me about 6 months.

The key is to own buy wild caught sea food and never use canned seafood. Takes about 3 hours to make 10 lbs. I previously used a blender but going to use a good grinder next time to better control the food size.