Making frozen food blend

[tebstan]

I'm about to mix up a new batch of fish and coral food. I'd like some opinions.

Last time, I mixed it all up and poured it into eggcrate wrapped in foil, and froze. It made a reasonable substitute for the cubed foil packs we buy. But after a while, dealing with the foil got irritating. It would rip, and lead to freezer burn.

So, this time I'm thinking of making my cubes in the eggcrate, then popping all the cubes out into a good quality freezer bag. No more foil irritation. There used to be (might still be?) a brand of frozen food sold this way. I'm worried the cubes might stick together too much.

How's this plan sound? Anyone got a better option?

I mix a bunch of stuff together, including oyster eggs. I've been using frozen DT's or H20 oyster eggs, but Reef Nutrition's new blend caught my eye. It's oyster eggs AND ovarian tissue. Hmm. But, it's refridgerated, not frozen. It's not live though. So, how about tossing it in the mix and freezing it?

[Mike]

We just mixed it all together and put it back into small zip top baggies and refreeze flat. So it becomes a lot like flat packs. Just don't fill too full or you can't break pieces off as you need them.

[Europhyllia]

I have that food that comes in cubes in 1 pound bags and won't buy it that way again. It's the H2O Coral food. I liked it in the regular cube packs and didn't realize the 1 pound bag would come all cubes out of the packs and just in a bag.
Getting a couple of stuck together cubes apart isn't that big of a deal. But freezer burn is starting and I hate it! :(
I divided it into smaller bags hoping to at least stop it.
I think that would be the key to make this work: storing it in lots of little bags, sucking the air out and not having it all in one big bag that gets opened frequently.

[tebstan]

Any ideas about freezing a refridgerated food?

[Europhyllia]

what type?

[tebstan]

Reef Nutrition's Oyster Feast
http://www.reefnutrition.com/oysterfeast.html

I'm curious to try it since it has the ovarian tissue as well as the eggs. Just one more ingredient to offer them. I'm still feeding phyto out of the fridge so I suppose its not a big deal to leave it out of the frozen mix. But every step towards convenience is helpful when I'm feeding so much variety.

[jroescher]

I froze mine in plastic ziploc bags laid on the freezer floor, with the ridges. It froze in thin strips that broke off easily. Maybe try laying them on a cake rack in the freezer for even thinner strips.

[tebstan]

I froze mine in plastic ziploc bags laid on the freezer floor, with the ridges. It froze in thin strips that broke off easily. Maybe try laying them on a cake rack in the freezer for even thinner strips.

Did you try freezing reef nutrition food?

I like the ridges idea. No messy foil to keep breakable sections, thats the kind of thing I'm looking for. Wish I could just find tiny toy size ice cube trays.

[Bill S]

Just use quart ziplocks. When I make (made) mine up, I'd do about 3 gallons at a time. Make sure and keep the flat packs thin, and freeze them on cookie sheets.

[allan]

I freeze mine flat in a quarter bag. After they freeze I wrap each in newspaper. I open one haggis and use a pair of steak scissors (I think that's what it's called) and cut the entire sheet ( 4" by 5"?) into food squares which I place into a little tuppleware container that holds about six or eight ounces with a twist locking top... Which goes into the freezer, pull to order.

Hasn't frozen together and I think each sheet lasts almost two weeks. No freezer burn yet.

[tebstan]

I heard back from Reef Nutrition today about freezing the Oyster Feast along with my other foods. Here's the verdict:


You should not notice a significant change when you re-freeze Oyster Feast. Any time you thaw and refreeze cells a few will break, but oyster eggs are more resistant to breaking than some of our other products like Phyto-Feast.Good thing, since I already did it! Feeding has been much more convenient this last week. So of course I complicate things by wanting to breed live food.


I won't be using the eggcrate to make tiny cubes anymore. It's been a pain. The mix came out thicker this time because of the different ingredients, and its hard to pop out of the little squares. I'll be going to the flat pack style on my next try.