Refrigerate frozen foods

WallEyes · Feb 14, 2015

I'm wondering if it's ok to refrigerate thawed spirulina brine after using some. If so how long would it be usable? I don't have enough fish for an entire cube worth of brine and I don't want to waste it all!

Thanks

aquaman67 · Feb 14, 2015

I'd pitch it. It's not worth doing something bad to your tank over IMO.

WallEyes · Feb 14, 2015

Even if it's the same day? Example, thaw and feed in the AM refrigerate and feed remaining in PM?

aquaman67 · Feb 14, 2015

WallEyes said:
Even if it's the same day? Example, thaw and feed in the AM refrigerate and feed remaining in PM?

That would probably be ok but why not just leave the other half frozen?

I cut mysis cubes in thirds because I only have three fish. I keep the other 2/3s frozen until I use it.

WallEyes · Feb 14, 2015

Yeah that makes sense. But just curious if anyone does refrigerate with success! Ha thanks for the response

Rob.D · Feb 14, 2015

You can hold thawed food for a day, but the decomposition process continues even in a refrigerator. You should treat fish food the same as you do human food, thaw what you plan to consume.

FL_Reefer · Feb 14, 2015

I always have kept thawed food in my fridge. Been doing it for years with no adverse effects. Never thought twice about it. Curious what ''effects'' it may cause? Would like to hear some feedback from others..

NanaReefer · Feb 14, 2015

I do this with my LRS food. I was told not to keep it longer than 8-10hrs, due to breaking down of the Pro Biotic.
I feed at 10am & 5pm.

SeahorseKeeper · Feb 14, 2015

With my seahorses, I feed them once in the morning and once at night. I thaw the cube in the morning and split between the two feedings.

tyler1503 · Feb 14, 2015

I've saved thawed frozen food for the next day. It was hard not to when I only had the one fish lol.
If possible, you could cut the cube in half as mentioned above. I've done that before, but freezer burn developed much quicker.

Fin · Feb 14, 2015

I will thaw out (and rinse) 4-5 cubes of assorted foods and soak overnight in SelCon (12 hours recommended in the directions) and keep it refrigerated for a couple of days. Been doing this forever and there is no odor to the 2 or even 3 day old food. The fish don't turn their noses up at it. I will say that we keep our fridge pretty cold. Sometimes the cubes don't even completely thaw overnight.

FL_Reefer · Feb 14, 2015

Fin said:
I will thaw out (and rinse) 4-5 cubes of assorted foods and soak overnight in SelCon (12 hours recommended in the directions) and keep it refrigerated for a couple of days. Been doing this forever and there is no odor to the 2 or even 3 day old food. The fish don't turn their noses up at it. I will say that we keep our fridge pretty cold. Sometimes the cubes don't even completely thaw overnight.

This what I do as well. My fish react the same too.

racin2438 · Feb 14, 2015

I thaw out enough for 2 days at a time, soak in garlic with a bit of Rodi. ..been doing it for years.

ReefFrenzy · Feb 15, 2015

We do not recommend keeping our foods in the refrigerator for more than a few hours, and even that is not optimal. There is a process called "protein denaturation" which begins attacking food ingredients as soon as they are frozen and thawed. Denaturation is the chemical, biological or (in our example) the physical breakdown of proteins and lipids in a food. Freezing and thawing causes "shearing" and ice crystal damage as the cell walls expand during the initial freezing process. This is why commercial freezers which are fan driven and kept at -20 to -30 degrees minimize these deleterious effects because the foods are frozen more rapidly than in say a residential freezer. When foods freeze slowly the ice crystals are larger.

Once certain ingredients such as mysis, brine, krill, etc are frozen and thawed it is possible their fragile exoskeleton is damaged and the beneficial nutrients inside can begin leaching out. This means if you keep a cup of brine or mysis shrimp thawed in the fridge for a day or two it is likely the phytoplankton which was inside the mysis can leak out into the water. This results in less nutrients going into your fish, and more going down the drain when you strain the food before feeding.

Secondly, even in a best case scenario where a manufacturer has tight controls over sourcing ingredients keeping a food thawed for 2-3 days can be on the edge of spoiling. For example, we source hundreds of pounds of wild caught perch every week. Typically the boats are out catching perch Tues-Friday and they arrive back at the dock on Friday night. My wholesaler "buys" the fish on Saturday and delivers it to me on Monday morning.

So in this example lets say the boat arrived at sea and caught its first perch on Tuesday and packed it on ice in the ships hull. When we begin making food the following week that perch is 6-7 days old and then frozen for the first time when added to our foods. That pack of food will get shipped to a store and end up in the hobbyist's freezer.

Now if the hobbyist breaks off a large piece of food and keeps it in the fridge for 2-5 days that perch is starting to push the limits of freshness and decay by the 4-5 day in the fridge. Remember it was already 6-7 days old when we added it to our blend.

Now if this timeline is accurate for OUR foods where we can track all our sourced ingredients to the day it was harvested, imagine how some of the commercial foods could be handled which use previously frozen ingredients. Also we are fortunate to have our shop in a region where we can get fresh perch, scallop, clams, shrimp, etc delivered promptly to maintain freshness but not everyone is so lucky so ingredients also may spend more time in transit.

I am aware many folks DO keep frozen food thawed for a few days and it likely won't kill your fish. However, our goal is not just to feed fish, but to feed fish in the most optimal and superior way possible. This means maintain the highest quality ingredients and feed the fish when the proteins, fats and amino acids are in their most intact state. This occurs right after the first thawing before feeding.

I can assure you that it makes a difference in the quality of the food when using it as quickly as you can when it is initially thawed. There have been a lot of tests and trials done with our foods as it relates to fish health, metabolism and spawning behavior. There is no doubt in my mind that the freshness of unmolested ingredients plays a large role in this so I would prefer to encourage people to feed frozen foods immediately upon thawing.

Diet and nutrition does make a difference as I posted in this thread a few days ago.

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/lr...n-program-working-help-hobby-please-read.html