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. Then you should try 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 are usually made from whole ingredients and flash frozen to preserve as many nutrients as possible. Fish food can be bought at any local fish shop, pet shop or online store. 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 Foods

For

Meat lovers

Like betta and pufferfish, frozen bloodworms are a hit with many species, including loaches, betta, pufferfish, and betta fish. “Bloodworms” are actually the larvae of midge flies that live in all sorts of freshwater bodies and are commonly eaten by fish, amphibians, and aquatic insects. The hemoglobin in their bodies is what gives them their bright red color. This is not artificial dye. To best suit your fish’s needs, you can purchase frozen bloodworms in regular and jumbo sizes. Another type of worm you can try is frozen tubifex worms, which is a great food to get your corydoras and other fish to breed.

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. To add more roughage into their diet, we recommend frozen brine shrimp. Artemia brine shrimp is an aquatic crustacean measuring 0.4 inches (1 cm). It is used widely in aquarium hobby as fish feed. Its exoskeleton, made of tough chitin that is difficult to digest by most animals, acts as fiber, helping your fish move their waste easier. Frozen spirulina brine shrimp can be fed to your fish for extra vitamins and natural coloring enhancement. It is made from brine shrimp gut-loaded nutrient-rich with spirulina.

Fish foods made with brine shrimps or other crustaceans can make your fish’s digestive systems more efficient.

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 measure 0.02-0.2 inches (0.5-5mm), with the cyclops being slightly smaller. 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 differ from adult brine shrimp in that they retain their yolk sacs which are full of healthy fats and protein, making them ideal for feeding newborn fish.

Baby-Brine shrimp is a great food to feed your fish fry in order to increase their survival rate and healthy growth.

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. To file their ever-growing teeth certain pufferfish need hard shells so make sure you buy frozen oysters and clams.

How to Feed Frozen Fish Foods

There are many methods to feed frozen foods. It all depends on how many fish 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. 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.

Place a cube frozen bloodworms into a cone worm feeder to keep them contained and less messy in your 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 is a great way to quickly feed many aquariums, or target feeding fish that are not well-fed during meal times. If you have picky eaters that only take live or frozen foods, we find it helpful to thaw the frozen food in a container without water and mix in a few drops of vitamin supplements to boost your fish’s immunity and brighten their colors.

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

Avoid leaving frozen food at room temperature longer than 30 minutes. It may spoil and smell. Refrigerate any frozen food that has been thawed at room temperatures. Bacteria growth could have begun and may have contaminated the fish. If you don’t want to waste food or upset your roommates or family, set a timer.

Frequently Asked Questions about Frozen Fish Food

How often should you feed frozen fish food?

It all depends upon your preferences and the care needs of your fish. For typical omnivores or community fish, you can feed frozen foods anywhere from once a week to several times a week. For pufferfish, African dwarf frogs, and other picky eaters, they may refuse to eat anything except for live or frozen foods. You can try to give your fish a variety of foods, including frozen, freeze dried, gel, live, prepared food (e.g. flakes and wafers), to ensure they receive all the nutrients they need to live a long, healthy life.

How many frozen foods should I feed my fish? Different fish have different appetites and different species are better at eating. You should first consider how thin or fat your fish are, and then how much food you have left over. Ideally, your fish should have slightly rounded abdomens. If their bellies look too swollen, consider decreasing the amount of food you feed, and if their bellies are sunken in, consider increasing the portion size. 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. If you have only one betta fish, it may take too many bloodworms to feed one fish. You can either cut off a portion of the cube or purchase a slab that is easier to split into smaller pieces. 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? You can train your fish to eat other foods by, for example, mixing pellets with the frozen bloodworms and feeding them together. Gradually increase the ratio of pellets to bloodworms until they are willing to eat the pellets on their own. Your fish may be more inclined to try new foods if you fast them for 2-7 days.

Frozen fish foods are a fun and appetizing way to add more variation to your fish’s diet, and they feed cleanly without dissolving in the water and adding a lot of mess to your aquarium. You can expand your fish’s palate by reading about five high-quality fish foods you should try.