Question - When you feed frozen cubes, do you bother defrosting and rinsing them first?

[Rumpy Pumpy]

Or just shove em in the tank?

I used to rinse em because I read that the juice contains a lot of phosphates but since my phos has always been undetectable I stopped bothering.

[maglofster]

I put mine i a big glass of water, when they are all defrosted I gently pour as much of the water away. The food will stay at the bottom of the glass. But I dont rinse under running water.

[kerry]

I just throw them in!!

[Ace25]

LOL, I ran this experiment years ago. Anyone with a Hanna Phosphate meter, try this out, and I bet you will always thaw/rinse your food once you read the results.

Test: 1 frozen cube of PE Mysis in 1 cup of 0 TDS RO/DI water. Let thaw, drain mysis into brine shrimp net, catch water to test. I ran the water 4 times through a 100 micron filter sock to filter out anything that may throw off a test result. Using 1 cup of 0 TDS RO/DI water I thawed food in, when tested for phosphates, come out to around 2.0. I then took another cup of water and rinsed the mysis that was in the net with clean water, and then tested the run off water from that, came back 1.0.

Bottom line, frozen food puts in A LOT of phosphates in the water, most of which are very easy to avoid by simply taking a few minutes to thaw and rinse with RO/DI water. I usually thaw 10 cubes in 2 cups of water every day, then use 1/4 gallon of RO/DI to rinse it in a brine shrimp net, then I soak the food in a few drops of vitamins (Vita-Chem and/or AminOmega plus a few drops of Garlic Guard) for 10 minutes, put some saltwater into the cup with the food, and feed my tanks over the course of the next 4 hours (I feed little bites every 30 minutes or so when I get home from work until lights out).

[SantaMonica]

If you have corals, just put it right in. The liquid food DOC will help feed. Most nutrients are in the solid food anyway.

[Tendura22]

I just put my cubes in my feeding ring that the auto feeder drops into. This way it slowly melts and falls into tank. Rinsing will remove all the vitamins they put in for the fishes health. I feed mysis then marine cuisine and frozen cyclops right before the lights go out.

[Ace25]

If you have corals, just put it right in. The liquid food DOC will help feed. Most nutrients are in the solid food anyway.
Thanks, you just made my point on why you should rinse. Since most nutrients are locked up in the solid food, and the water used to package the food is most likely nasty tap water (which who knows how many bad things that will contain), it is a no brainer to rinse away the nasty water they were frozen in and still retain the nutrients since those are in the solid food. ;) I also soak my food in good nutrients after thaw to add an extra boost to their nutritional value. My meter tops out at 2.5 for phosphates, I like to keep my tank at or under 0.10. Tossing in a cup of 2.0 phosphate water (and I would argue much higher in the end) every day is going to lead to some pretty high phosphates in my opinion, so much phosphates you could put your system out of wack by having no nitrates and lots of phosphates.

For coral food, super tiny stuff like rotifers, I just toss the cubes in. Too hard to rinse the small foods and one cube 2x a week of coral food isn't going to throw my tank out of wack.

[kerry]

Mine only gets a max of two store bought cubes a week anyway. I usually always use my homemade food unless I am showing them to friends, rushed for time, or gotten out of work late. There was a time when I first started my 40G SW that I only fed it mostly frozen brine shrimp and some flakes for about 2 months. I had a scrubber so maybe that is why it never showed over .1 on the phosphate tests or maybe its a brand issue? How fast can a good working scrubber suck up a cup of water with 2.0 phosphate put into say a 50G tank anyway. Is it of concern if running a scrubber? This is good info to know if someone is fighting high phosphate and feeds a lot of cubes and does not have a scrubber, or maybe has a week one.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Fast. When I had the scrubber offline for over a week during move to my house, the P jumped to 0.65 (120 with 30g of LR, minus glass, about 80g of water) and within 2 days of running the scrubber again it was down to below 0.10. I would not worry - at all - about thawing food in a scrubber system. PE Mysis would be the only exception, that stuff is packed in grease water I swear.

[Ace25]

Problem is Phosphates are tied to Nitrates.. with a scrubber you can easily get nitrates down to 0, and at which point you will no longer be able to drop phosphates (unless you use GFO or similar). Sure, 1 cup of water at 2.0 in 50G of tank water is not much at all, but do that day in and day out, I think it is possible at some point it will cause an imbalance in nitrates/phosphates which could lead to bigger issues if that happens. Tossing frozen cubes in every once in a while is no big deal, even I do that when I forget to feed until close to lights out and know I don't have time to thaw, but as general practice I like the thaw/rinse my food.

Picture this, you have .1 phosphates, 0 nitrates. You toss in a cup of food, you get maybe 10 nitrates and 2.0 phophates, nitrates are consumed very quickly, as is some of the phosphates, leaving you with say .12 phosphates remaing and 0 nitrates. Next day, you repeat, now your at .14 phosphates ... each day adds a little more phosphates as nitrates get depleted since your not putting in an even ratio of nitrates to phosphates (I honestly think food adds a lot more phosphates than it does nitrates to a system if you don't rinse). That is just a "what if" scenerio, not saying it is common or will happen, just something to think about.

Back to the original post, if your testing phosphates with a meter and coming back with 0, I would think you would have dead corals, you need some phosphates. If you mean you have low phosphates and they don't go up, then I agree with you, other than the "unknowns" that may be in the water the food is in, there shouldn't be any issue tossing frozen cubes in the tank.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I guess my point of reference is from using a DIY food, for which most of the ingredients are rinsed (besides the cyclopeeze and a spirulina brine shrimp, etc) but then I add Coral Frenzy as well as other coral supplements so there's no way I'd rinse my food.

[Ace25]

Your method sounds perfect Floyd. DIY food is clean and your right, you certainly don't want to rinse after adding cyclopeeze, spirulina, or any other small coral type food because they will get washed off if you do. I have never done any testing on DIY food, closest I tried was Rod's food but even with a brine shrimp net and 100 micron filter you still get to many small particles to make phosphate testing possible.

Your post reminded me I had a full bottle of BRS Reef Chili sitting under my tank. Perfect food for my baby clownfish. As soon as I walked in the door I grabbed it and made a quick bottle and dumped it in the fry tank and they went to town munching away. I am still shocked I am having the success I am with the babies so far, I honestly didn't think they would have made it past 48 hrs.

[SantaMonica]

If you are adding organic food, live or dead, then N and P will always be proportional (redfield ratio) since it's all from animals. So actually, the more food/waste you add, the more it brings the system back to "balance". Only if you add N directly (calcium nitrate) or P directly (potassium phosphate) could you really change the balance.

[Ace25]

Unless the "source water" that is used to freeze the food in is laden with phosphates, which appears that way to me from my tests. My readings were 10 nitrates and 2.0 phosphates on the cup of water I tested. To me that seems exceptionally out of balance.

I don't think this is a problem that will happen quickly if you toss frozen foods directly into the tank, it could take years to reach a point it has a negative impact depending on different factors, but I think it is something everyone should at least know about so they have the knowledge to decide what is best for them. Actually, I would encourage anyone to try their own tests with different foods and post results, that would be some good information to have.

If your lazy and just want to toss frozen cubes in, and understand you may need to add some GFO every once in a while, then go that route. Nothing wrong with being lazy about certain things if that's your style. I am certainly lazy about doing certain things around the house myself, not really fish related though, but still, we all have our things.

[Aeros]

I get a very strong feeding response with PE Mysis whole cubes. Some corals, milli's especially, are all fuzzy and crazy. I need to get a pick of it...

I agree 100% about being nitrate limited, and minimizing any PO4 input. I can't get my PO4 under .05 ppm.

Just love knowing my corals are getting fed.