Portioning bulk frozen food
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Goodair
Valuable Member
Break a chunk off, and piece it out with my fingers. If the piece is still too big, I grab a knife and cut it while it's still frozen. It's easier to do feedings when you just reach in the bag and grab how much you need.
Do the same thing with frozen fish/shrimp/squid. Got a lil container filled with the food all loose.
Do the same thing with frozen fish/shrimp/squid. Got a lil container filled with the food all loose.
I actually cut it up with a large chef knife into usable cubes. Throw it back in a freezer bag and just grab a cube to thaw for each feeding.
I portion with a scale broken off frozen pieces. Then put into reusable screw top plastic containers. Each container gets 3 days worth of food. When i use up one transfer the next one to the fridge. When done all 12 containers go in the dishwasher and i begin a new. Lets me mix up different types of food without having to rotate them and remember what day i am on lol.
Reefs and Geeks
Well-Known Member
I just break a chunk off, put it in a small bottle and pour some into the tank. I typically put about 3 days worth in the fridge at a time as it starts to turn around 4-5 days.
If you want more exact portion control, than I'd cut them up into a grid while frozen and store in a freezer bag in the freezer. That's what I used to do, but now I feed so much i don't worry if there's an extra couple cubes worth of food dumped in.
If you want more exact portion control, than I'd cut them up into a grid while frozen and store in a freezer bag in the freezer. That's what I used to do, but now I feed so much i don't worry if there's an extra couple cubes worth of food dumped in.
My fish are not on a diet. I just break some off. Sometimes they get a lot, sometimes they don't.
Swingline77
Active Member
Hammer and chisel on a board outside is the easiest for food that's too hard to break by hand.
Midrats
Valuable Member
A nice way to keep things tidy and avoid stinky fingers and melting is to partially thaw the food until pliable, then stuff it into a tube and refreeze. What you have essentially is push up pop, remember those? A syringe with the business end cut off works great. Now you can go to town on the microplane without touching the food.
Peace River
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In line with others here, I chop it in to blocks in a grid pattern and then put the pieces into a thick air tight ziplock bag. I highly recommend using a “for fish only” knife and cutting board. Please don’t ask how I learned this key tip. 
I use LRS in my nano that’s stocked with 5 fish none of which are heavy eaters. I thaw the entire package and mix with a little reef roids, and selcon and RODI water. I then poor the mixture into these smaller ice cube trays.Hello, how do you cut -up/ portion this?
Me, I just make small pinch and still get a big chunk for my nano tank.
How do you do it?
Thanks!
One bigger pack of of LRS will get me close to 6-7 months worth of food at 2 cubes a day
Snook65
Active Member
I do the same typically cutting up a couple weeks worth at a time.
ReefFrenzy
Shrimp Pimp
To the original poster (and others) thank you for using LRS Foods! We hope your fish and aquarium inhabitants have been enjoying the Reef Frenzy® Nano blend. Like many mentioned the food is very thin and easy to simply slice up like a tic-tac-toe pattern into any size cubes you desire. It is also very easy to keep frozen until feeding time and simply snap off a piece. Some breeders even use a cheese grater if they need to grind it up for smaller sized fish or juvenile clownfish.
Just a couple of things I wanted to mention about food handling. We supply food for some of the most expensive aquarium fish in the hobby, both in private and public aquariums. Therefore we always strive to recommend the best practices for preparation and storage. Over the last 8 years we have seen nearly every food prep and feeding method you can imagine. With respect to our foods please take note of the following suggestions:
1. Only store as much thawed food as you can feed in the fridge in 24 hours. Upon thawing fatty acids start degrading at an increasingly fast rate day by day. As someone mention after 3-4 days the food has taken a turn and by days 6-7 it is likely spoiled (and will smell like it). Public aquariums and aquaculture facilities have elaborate food prep areas which are used on a daily basis verses preparing food for a week at a time.
2. It is never advisable to thaw LRS foods back into a liquid or "mushy" state so they can be added to cube trays or mixed with other foods. When any "meaty" food is re-frozen slowly in a residential freezer ice crystals form and there is a "shearing" effect. This breaks down the food at the cellular level further degrading the food. Please bear in mind we already have thawed and rinsed the PE Mysis one time before adding it to our blend, so if you thaw/freeze again it is subjecting the delicate shrimp to even more ice crystals. There are articles which explain that the nutritional content of the food is further diminished when food is subjected to repeated thaw/freeze events. This is why it is equally important to make sure that when you transport frozen fish food home from the LFS you should make an effort to bring a cooler and ice packs so the food doesn't thaw on the way home.
These two points may not seem like a big deal, and I am sure many folks may disagree there is any risk. However as a manufacturer with stringent quality control we always want to recommend the best possible way to care for and prepare our products. It makes sense that if you are spending hard earned money on a premium, ultra-fresh aquarium food you would want to keep it in the best condition possible until feeding time. I wasn't trying to be critical of anyone posting, just wanted to share some information in case a new hobbyist stumbled on thread and did not know about our recommendations for food handling.
Thanks as always for the support from the awesome R2R community.
Just a couple of things I wanted to mention about food handling. We supply food for some of the most expensive aquarium fish in the hobby, both in private and public aquariums. Therefore we always strive to recommend the best practices for preparation and storage. Over the last 8 years we have seen nearly every food prep and feeding method you can imagine. With respect to our foods please take note of the following suggestions:
1. Only store as much thawed food as you can feed in the fridge in 24 hours. Upon thawing fatty acids start degrading at an increasingly fast rate day by day. As someone mention after 3-4 days the food has taken a turn and by days 6-7 it is likely spoiled (and will smell like it). Public aquariums and aquaculture facilities have elaborate food prep areas which are used on a daily basis verses preparing food for a week at a time.
2. It is never advisable to thaw LRS foods back into a liquid or "mushy" state so they can be added to cube trays or mixed with other foods. When any "meaty" food is re-frozen slowly in a residential freezer ice crystals form and there is a "shearing" effect. This breaks down the food at the cellular level further degrading the food. Please bear in mind we already have thawed and rinsed the PE Mysis one time before adding it to our blend, so if you thaw/freeze again it is subjecting the delicate shrimp to even more ice crystals. There are articles which explain that the nutritional content of the food is further diminished when food is subjected to repeated thaw/freeze events. This is why it is equally important to make sure that when you transport frozen fish food home from the LFS you should make an effort to bring a cooler and ice packs so the food doesn't thaw on the way home.
These two points may not seem like a big deal, and I am sure many folks may disagree there is any risk. However as a manufacturer with stringent quality control we always want to recommend the best possible way to care for and prepare our products. It makes sense that if you are spending hard earned money on a premium, ultra-fresh aquarium food you would want to keep it in the best condition possible until feeding time. I wasn't trying to be critical of anyone posting, just wanted to share some information in case a new hobbyist stumbled on thread and did not know about our recommendations for food handling.
Thanks as always for the support from the awesome R2R community.
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Love my LRS it’s the main stay of my tank. Thanks for chiming in - shows your dedication and passion for the health of our tank inhabitants!
Also - shrimp pimp lol... got me like ;Hilarious
jlanger
Well-Known Member
The vast majority of my food for my reefs is frozen foods; LRS Frenzy blends and PE Mysis and Calanus.
I will take a flat pack and cut it into chunks with a knife that vary in size a little bit. That way when I want to mix in some mysis or calanus, I feed a smaller cube of the LRS food with those others. On those lazy days, I just feed a larger chunk of the LRS food.
And as far as a dedicated fish food knife.... I use our regular kitchen knife. The ingredients in the LRS blends are top quality seafoods that we would prepare for ourselves, so where's the harm. I do make sure that the knife gets washed immediately to not "surprise" the next user.
I will take a flat pack and cut it into chunks with a knife that vary in size a little bit. That way when I want to mix in some mysis or calanus, I feed a smaller cube of the LRS food with those others. On those lazy days, I just feed a larger chunk of the LRS food.
And as far as a dedicated fish food knife.... I use our regular kitchen knife. The ingredients in the LRS blends are top quality seafoods that we would prepare for ourselves, so where's the harm. I do make sure that the knife gets washed immediately to not "surprise" the next user.
ReefFrenzy
Shrimp Pimp
Someone nicknamed me that years ago because we process TONS of Carolina shrimp annually. LOL! Thanks again for supporting our brand.
Thank you for the input, I really appreciate it!
That's genius, but I'm kinda simple! My wife is allergic to shellfish and just doesn't like fish so there's no way she's gonna go messing around with a big frozen hunk of fish stuff. So we buy the frozen cubes, and she can deal with that. Now you've found a way for my wife to use LRS. Thanks for the tip!I use LRS in my nano that’s stocked with 5 fish none of which are heavy eaters. I thaw the entire package and mix with a little reef roids, and selcon and RODI water. I then poor the mixture into these smaller ice cube trays.
One bigger pack of of LRS will get me close to 6-7 months worth of food at 2 cubes a day
ReefFrenzy
Shrimp Pimp
@tuesdayd please see my reply and explanation above. We do not recommend thawing and refreezing LRS foods. It degrades the product and there are other risks as well, such as the possibility of bacterial growth depending on temperature, etc.
Yeah, I was writing my reply as you posted all that info. After I posted I got caught up with the thread and saw it may not be the best idea.
I tell ya what though...I appreciate you paying attention and looking out for us!
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