Has anybody ever had fish die from non expired chest freezer kept frozen food? Could a fish that is primarily on a pellet diet die from frozen food? This seems to be the case with some of my fish. Is it possible that they can’t process the frozen food or the bacteria in it due to rarely eating frozen food?
Frozen Food Killing Fish???
- Thread starter RyanFish
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Redfoxtang
2500 Club Member
Partner Member 2024
Excellence Award
Reef Tank 365
Tampa Bay Reef Keepers
Hospitality Award
R2R Secret Santa 2023
Highly unlikely your fish are dying from frozen foods. What kind of frozen foods are you feeding?
Finnaddict
Active Member
I agree. Never had a fish die from a varied diet of dry and frozen.
I gave an unopened bag of gamma slice whole mussel and gamma slice brine shrimp. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m scared of feeding frozen food. Last time I gave brand new non expired clam on half shell, a small niger trigger died the next morning. No damage. Healthy. After a while of not feeding frozen food, I gave these 2 foods and now I have a dragon wrasse and niger trigger dead. Both healthy, no damage. Completely unexpected dead on the floor. No deaths in between the 2 feedings except for a fish with an abscess. Whats common about these fish is that overtime they have preferred a majority pellet diet, which is why I’m thinking the frozen food could be the culprit.
Redfoxtang
2500 Club Member
Partner Member 2024
Excellence Award
Reef Tank 365
Tampa Bay Reef Keepers
Hospitality Award
R2R Secret Santa 2023
My fish eat nothing but frozen foods. No dry foods whatsoever as they don’t eat that in the wild. Unless your fish were tank raised on nothing but dry food then maybe the frozen foods could be in play here but that would be odd. Plus most trigger fish love a meaty diet. Have you disposed on the dead fish yet? I’m sorry for your loss as well!
I like @Redfoxtang only feed home made fresh or LRS frozen food and never had an issue. Nori for the tangs and that’s it
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2019
- Messages
- 598
- Reaction score
- 755
Are you absolutely positive that the food had never reached room temperature or thawed at all before you purchased it? Is there freezer burn or ice crystals on the package? I have had a bad batch or two myself. Unless you make your own you can never be truly 100% sure that there is no decomposition.
That said, i don't think ingesting one bad shrimp or whatever, would kill a healthy fish. They eat far worse in the wild. BUT a sudden large influx of decomposed/decayed food could possibly spike the ammonia, a fish dies and further spikes it.
That said, i don't think ingesting one bad shrimp or whatever, would kill a healthy fish. They eat far worse in the wild. BUT a sudden large influx of decomposed/decayed food could possibly spike the ammonia, a fish dies and further spikes it.
Yes. No freezer burn. I keep it in a chest freezer. It sucks because I’m getting blamed for killing these 3 fish. My brother keeps saying the fish only need pellets, don’t give frozen food. Frozen food is dirty and the fish are unable to digest the bacteria blah blah. But everyone feeds frozen food and its natural for them to eat it. Maybe the mix of mostly pellets and the occasional frozen food is being lethal. I guess I’m going to just stop and give them pellets and nori.
My fish are the opposite. Some fish even completely ignore frozen food. They love pellets and nori. I disposed of them in a bag about an hour ago. All I noticed was the triggers stomach was a bit bloated and one of his eyes was cloudy/glazed.
GlassMunky
2500 Club Member
There is zero chance that the fact the food is frozen over dry has anything to do with their deaths.
also,don’t listen to your brother or whoever is saying “they Can’t digest the bacteria in frozen food” because this person obviously has zero idea what they are talking about.
I’d look into other causes like possible infections of some kind. Do you QT your fish?
also, you said “dead on the floor”, like outside the tank on the floor dead or just dead on the bottom of the tank?
also,don’t listen to your brother or whoever is saying “they Can’t digest the bacteria in frozen food” because this person obviously has zero idea what they are talking about.
I’d look into other causes like possible infections of some kind. Do you QT your fish?
also, you said “dead on the floor”, like outside the tank on the floor dead or just dead on the bottom of the tank?
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2016
- Messages
- 22,829
- Reaction score
- 21,964
It is possible - but not probable. Frozen food - especially clams- can contain vibrio, among other things. Some bacteria die with freezing - but - many do just fine - its freezing and thawing repeatedly that kills bacteria. There is really no 'difference' between dry and frozen food in my opinion - (although there are different qualities/rankings - i.e. a poor frozen food is worse than a high quality dry food) - After all - 'dry food' is not dry anymore after its put in the tank right? PS sorry about your fish - its always hard to have a death
Yes I QT and haven’t made any changes or additions. The other fish are doing well so far. The correlation between the feeding of frozen food and these deaths made me think its the frozen food.
I meant dead on the bottom of the tank.
I like dry food for the fish. And use high quality ones like thera. After a while, Pellets do sometimes give my water a slight yellow tint but it goes away with carbon or with a water change. From time to time I give frozen because I think variety is good and that something natural and soft will clean their stomach and guts. They really do love pellets and all are healthy weights, colorful, and happy. So maybe the frozen food risk is unnecessary for my established fish and should be used to break in new fish. I honestly don’t know.
Last time I fed them frozen, a fish died the next morning. This time I fed a different frozen food from different batch and purchased at a different time, and 2 fish are dead. The correlation is there. No other deaths, besides a major abscess death, no changes, no additions, no diseases like ich or velvet or worms etc.
I’ll keep this post updated if any other fish don’t feel well or pass away. It hasn’t even been 24 hours since I fed them frozen food.
You can read about the abscess here. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/major-emergency-pinktail-trigger.754505/
It’s a 3 page discussion.
Not likely that that same thing happened to these fish and they just dropped dead. That fish had a major noticeable problem and then slowly died within a day or 2. He was noticeably sick and breathing fast and not eating and had a huge growth. Completely different situation. But good suggestion!
I would look in another direction for possible causes for the dead fish. It’s highly unlikely that feeding the frozen food killed 2 of your fish especially the trigger, if it was contaminated in a way to kill fish more would probably have died. I have triggers, tangs, clowns, etc. and feed them only frozen food, around 12 cubes a day, they never get any pellets, nori or other dry foods and are all healthy, and I don’t quarantine. I would look at your water chemistry closely as a possible cause.
GlassMunky
2500 Club Member
Correlation does not equal causation though
GlassMunky
2500 Club Member
So you introduced a sick fish to your system but your sure it’s the frozen food and not a disease...,
I think your just hoping rather than knowing they aren’t sick.
Everything to points towards disease
I did not introduce a sick fish. I’ve had the fish for several years. You clearly did not read that post. He died from an abscess. Nothing could have saved him. He lived for many years and his death was quick and unexpected. If you read the post, you’ll see that after opening him up we were able to determine what happened to him. It was not just “he died from a disease”. We learned something from his death and it was a group effort that was appreciated on this site.
Once again, his death has nothing to do with these 2 fish. These fish were healthy and eating and did not die to an abscess or rapid breathing or lack of eating. They had no symptoms while that other fish had many symptoms and a clear growth.
Everyone knows correlation doesn’t mean causation. Fish also swim in water. I said that since there is a repeat correlation there may be a causation. Not that there is one.
The fish have no signs of disease. I’ve checked all of them and the dead ones. I wouldn’t come to this forum and ask such an absurd question about frozen food if I hadn’t looked into other possible causes before hand. Water changes have been done and water parameters are great. If they were off, I would mention it. I have nothing to hide. Nothing points toward “disease”.
You keep saying disease disease disease even though there isn’t a single symptom or sign pointing to that. What you are saying is very broad and all encompassing. I can use that response on every infectious or disease post on this site. You’re certain its a disease but you don’t say which one. You don’t give a way of identifying it or ruling out other diseases. You don’t say how to go about treating such a “disease”. Just a simple he died from a disease, not helpful.
Diseases typically show symptoms. Spots, redness, discoloration, lack of appetite, swimming into a powerhead, upside down swimming, rapid breathing, bloated stomach, growths, fin issues, scratching, eye issues etc. If my pinktail trigger was smaller/skinnier and maybe a less dark color, I possibly could have noticed his growth. If what killed these 2 fish was a disease and what killed the single fish last time I fed frozen food a few weeks ago was the same disease, it would have to been a super lethal hidden disease that comes out of nowhere, without additions, and kills a healthy fish in 10 hours without any symptoms. I’ve never heard of anything like that, so I doubt it’s that.
You come across a bit strongly as a know it all. Pointing fingers, making assumptions, stating the obvious like correlation doesn’t mean causation, and making baseless conclusions like everything points toward disease and that I carelessly threw in a sick fish and am certain the food caused the deaths based off hope. Never said I was certain it was the food. I said it may be possible because of a repeat correlation and no other changes or additions. If I was certain, I wouldn’t be asking this forum about it. I thought maybe someone else had a rare case where there was a problem mixing a high pellet diet with occasional frozen food. Maybe their fish got constipated and died. Or their batch of whole mussels had a bacteria. Or their fish overate and exploded. I’ve read about people having problems with pellet companies and frozen food companies and live food.
An odd death like this may be due to an odd reason not just “yeah he died from a disease” or “clearly it was due to the sick fish you added” even though I didn’t add such fish. I could have came up with that elementary answer on my own. I didn’t just start this tank yesterday and throw a bunch of fish in there. I’ve successfully been doing this for over 15 years.
I’ve seen so many posts on this site where someone clearly shows a fish with ich, velvet, hole in the head, intestinal parasites, flukes etc and someone comes along and says “your fish has a disease”. Well of course it has a disease. Then others look at another symptomless fish and give the same broad answer “disease.” Be specific. Give direction. Ask questions. Ask for symptoms or abnormalities. Support your conclusion. If you don’t know the answer you don’t need to respond but if you don’t know and choose share your thoughts which are welcome and appreciated, you should give reasons to support your opinion.
Similar threads
