Freeze dried vs frozen food

[Swampman]

Hi I have read conflectiing stories about freeze dried being just air with no nutrients in the food. Frozen is better keeps in the nutrients. Than I read nutrients are the same in both. People eat freeze dried food all the time. I don't know what to believe. How long does flakes, pellets last before they loose all nutrients. Thanks

 

[Byron]

Speaking solely of fish food here, I would avoid all freeze dried foods. The basic prepared dry foods are considerably more nutritious and safer, if made by a reliable manufacturer. Freeze dried tend to soak up water considerably and expand, and this often occurs once the fish has eaten it, and this will cause serious internal issues. Soaking the FD food beforehand can deal with this, but from my research and discussions with knowledgeable biologists I understand FD is best avoided, there are much better and safer options.

Frozen (fresh frozen) foods are good because they are close to "live food" in texture and some fussy fish will feed better with frozen than dry prepared foods. Frozen daphnia is an excellent food. Frozen bloodworms should only be fed once a week as they are not that wholesome.

Quality prepared dry flake and pellet foods are high in nutrition, and most fish will readily eat them. These foods are better than the frozen when it comes to nutrition.

 

[Colin_T]

Freeze dried foods are made by cooking normal foods at a low temperature (around 60C). This removes the moisture from the food and sterilises it. When it is put into an airtight container, freeze dried foods can last for a very long time. The nutrients (mostly vitamins) in them are high but not as high as fresh food that hasn't been cooked. This is because most vitamins are damaged by heat.

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Frozen foods have more vitamins than freeze dried because they haven't been heated. Frozen is the next best thing to live and the nutrients are very similar to live/ fresh food. However, freezing does not kill many bacteria, viruses or diseases in the food, so unless it has been cleaned prior to freezing, it could be contaminated by something.

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Dry fish flakes and pellets are cooked at low temperatures too (around 60C). They can be reasonably good food but many manufacturers put grains/ flour in them to bind the mixture together and to add weight. They can also add a whole pile of other things that are supposed to help do things for the fish. Unfortunately most of these additives, including grains, can't be digested by fish so they are pointless.

If you have flake food or pellets containing any sort of flour, grains, soy products or herbs like rosemary, then you may as well eat the food because the fish won't be able to digest any of these things.

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If you have a couple of types of dry food and some frozen foods, then alternate them during the week, the fish should get a well balanced diet.

I used to feed dry flake and pellet in the morning before work. When I got home I fed frozen foods followed by live foods.