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. Yes, they contain a well-balanced mixture of nutritious ingredients, but wouldn’t it be nice to treat your fish to a sumptuous roast chicken dinner every once in a while? You should also consider frozen fish foods. These premium-grade fish foods are rich in high-quality proteins, healthy fat acids, and gut-loaded vitamin. Frozen foods are second only to live foods. They are also a great choice for picky eaters and sick animals with a reduced appetite. 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 typically contain whole ingredients that have been flash frozen to retain as many of their original nutrients as possible, and eliminate any pathogens. Frozen fish food can be purchased at your local pet shop, fish shop, or online. These frozen fish foods come in convenient packaging that can be broken into smaller pieces or packaged in large slabs. 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.

Frozen fish foods are often packaged in individual cubes for quick and easy feedings.

Different Types of Frozen Fish Foods

For

meat lovers

like betta fish, pufferfish, and loaches, frozen bloodworms are always a huge hit. “Bloodworms”, which are actually larvae of midge fly flies, can be found in freshwater bodies. They are often eaten by aquatic insects, fish, amphibians and other animals. Their bright red coloration is not caused by an artificial dye but rather naturally comes from the hemoglobin inside their bodies. You can buy frozen bloodworms in regular, jumbo, and mini sizes to best fit your fish’s preferences. Frozen tubifex worms are another option. This is great for breeding corydoras with other fish.

Dwarf puffers love eating frozen bloodworms, but make sure to add other foods to their diet for optimal health.

Some fish such as goldfish, betta fish and Apistogramma Cichlids can become constipated if they eat too much protein and not enough fibre. We recommend frozen brine shrimp to include more roughage in their diet. Artemia brine shrimp is an aquatic crustacean measuring 0.4 inches (1 cm). It is used widely in aquarium hobby as fish feed. The exoskeleton of the Artemia brine shrimp is made from tough chitin. This is not easily digestible by most animals. It acts as fiber and helps your fish pass their waste more easily. You can feed frozen spirulina shrimp to increase vitamins and natural color enhancement. This is made up of brine shrimp that have been gut-loaded with nutrient rich spirulina alga.

Fish food made from brine shrimps and other crustaceans may help your fish’s digestion system run more smoothly.

Filter feeders and nano fish can’t eat larger frozen foods. They are too big to swallow and hard to eat, so you might consider giving them smaller food like frozen daphnia or cyclops. These tiny freshwater crustaceans range from 0.02-0.2 inch (0.5-5 mm), with cyclops being slightly smaller out of the two. These crustaceans are delicious and rich in protein. They also have exoskeletons which aid with digestion. Frozen baby brine shrimp are a great option for baby fry. These shrimp are only 450 millimeters in size. Baby brine shrimp are different from adult brine shrimp because they still have their yolk sacs, which are filled with healthy fats and proteins that are ideal for newborn fish.

Baby brine shrimp is one of the best foods to feed your fish fry to boost healthy growth and increase survival rate.

You should choose frozen fish foods with larger ingredients such as mysis shrimps, krill, or silversides for larger fish. For monster fish, it may be necessary to shop at the grocery for food that is human-sized such as frozen cocktail shrimp, fish fillets, and prawns. For their teeth to grow, some pufferfish require hard shells. So, look out for frozen oysters or clams.

Frozen Fish Foods: What to Feed?

There are many ways to feed frozen food, depending on the number of fish or tanks. Dropping a cube or a piece of frozen food into an aquarium is the easiest. It will quickly thaw so that fish can begin to eat it. Some people like to place the cube inside a cone for worm feeding to slow down release and keep the largest or fastest fish from eating it all up.

Fold a cube with frozen bloodworms inside a worm feeder cone. This will help keep the worms contained and makes it less messy.

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.

We recommend adding multivitamins for fish that eat only frozen and fresh foods to prevent them from becoming deficient in nutrients.

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 frozen fish food be fed?

It all depends upon your preferences and the care needs of your fish. You can feed frozen food to omnivores and community fish as often as you like, but not more than once per week. If they are picky eaters like African dwarf frogs and pufferfish, they might refuse to eat any other food than frozen or live foods. To ensure that your fish has all the nutrients they need for a long and healthy life, you should try to mix frozen, freeze-dried gel, live, gel, prepared and live foods as much as possible.

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. Two things you should be focusing on are 1) how fat or skinny your fish are, and 2) how much leftover food they have. Your fish should have slightly round 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. If your fish leave a lot of frozen food on the ground after they are fed, you can remove it and give them less the next time. For example, if you only have one betta fish, an entire cube of bloodworms is too much for it to finish in one sitting, so you may need to cut off a section of the cube to thaw out or buy a slab of bloodworms that is easier to break into smaller pieces. For more details on how much to feed your fish, read our full article here.

What happens if my fish refuses food other than frozen foods? By feeding your fish pellets mixed with frozen bloodworms, you can teach them to eat other foods. Gradually increase the ratio of pellets to bloodworms until they are willing to eat the pellets on their own. 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. For more ideas on how to expand your fish’s palette, read about 5 high-quality fish foods that you have to try.