Washing or rinsing food
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Ty Hamatake
Hi, my name is Ty and I'm a Reefer...
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A lot of people rinse (or at least strain) frozen foods to do exactly what you said. Remove excess nutrients. The only negative I can come up with is actually a result of the positive (reduction in nutrients), when you rinse the food you're removing a lot of the smaller particles that could be utilized as food by coral and smaller inverts.
I think Randy has an article somewhere and crunches the numbers and for phosphate at least there isn't all that much point in rinsing.
Here you go:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry
Rinsing Foods and the Effect on Phosphate
Now that we have some information on the phosphate in foods, we can critically examine the concern that many aquarists have about foods, and specifically their rinsing of frozen foods before use. A typical test you see is someone taking a cube of fish food, thawing it, and putting it into a half cup of water. They then test that water for phosphate and find it "off the charts". Let's assume that means 1 ppm phosphate, which would give a very dark blue color in many phosphate tests. Bear in mind this is a thought problem, not an actual measured value, but it is typical of what people think the answer is.
Is that a lot of phosphate? Well, there are two ways to think of the answer.
The first way is as a portion of the total phosphate in that food. A half cup of water at 1 ppm (1 mg/L) phosphate contains a total of 0.12 mg of phosphate. A cube of Formula 2 contains about 11.2 mg of phosphate. So the hypothetical rinsing step has removed about 1 percent of the phosphate in that food. Not really worthwhile, in my opinion, but that decision is one every aquarist can make for themselves.
The second way to look at this rinsing is with respect to how much it reduces the boost to the aquarium phosphate concentration. Using the same calculation as above of 0.12 mg of phosphate, and adding that to 100 gallons total water volume, we find that phosphate that was rinsed away would have boosted the "in tank" phosphate concentration by 0.12 mg/379 L = 0.0003 ppm. That amount washed away does not seem significant with respect to the "in tank" target level of about 50-100 times that level (say, 0.015 to 0.03 ppm), nor does it seem significant relative to the total amount of phosphate actually added each day in foods (which is perhaps 50-1000 times as much, based on input rates from Table 4. Again, the conclusion I make is that rinsing is not really worthwhile, in my opinion.
Here you go:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry
Rinsing Foods and the Effect on Phosphate
Now that we have some information on the phosphate in foods, we can critically examine the concern that many aquarists have about foods, and specifically their rinsing of frozen foods before use. A typical test you see is someone taking a cube of fish food, thawing it, and putting it into a half cup of water. They then test that water for phosphate and find it "off the charts". Let's assume that means 1 ppm phosphate, which would give a very dark blue color in many phosphate tests. Bear in mind this is a thought problem, not an actual measured value, but it is typical of what people think the answer is.
Is that a lot of phosphate? Well, there are two ways to think of the answer.
The first way is as a portion of the total phosphate in that food. A half cup of water at 1 ppm (1 mg/L) phosphate contains a total of 0.12 mg of phosphate. A cube of Formula 2 contains about 11.2 mg of phosphate. So the hypothetical rinsing step has removed about 1 percent of the phosphate in that food. Not really worthwhile, in my opinion, but that decision is one every aquarist can make for themselves.
The second way to look at this rinsing is with respect to how much it reduces the boost to the aquarium phosphate concentration. Using the same calculation as above of 0.12 mg of phosphate, and adding that to 100 gallons total water volume, we find that phosphate that was rinsed away would have boosted the "in tank" phosphate concentration by 0.12 mg/379 L = 0.0003 ppm. That amount washed away does not seem significant with respect to the "in tank" target level of about 50-100 times that level (say, 0.015 to 0.03 ppm), nor does it seem significant relative to the total amount of phosphate actually added each day in foods (which is perhaps 50-1000 times as much, based on input rates from Table 4. Again, the conclusion I make is that rinsing is not really worthwhile, in my opinion.
mcarroll
10K Club member
The rinsing makes sense to me if you're using foods that have a preservative of some kind. This is at least somewhat likely with frozen seafood intended for human consumption. And I think that's where the idea originated....otherwise I'm with Ty and it makes no sense....rinsing whole-frozen or processed foods that have no additives is just coral food going down the drain. 
If you rinse LRS, you're losing at least some of the probiotics you paid for. I do rinse the solution off of @Reef Nutrition ROE since I lose no food value in that case.....I have no idea how the shipping solution breaks down in the tank nutrient-wise, although it's technically harmless. So I know I don't need to rinse ROE, but is rinsing it a "good idea" even in a small way?
Put it another way...
If the difference between algae-bloom and no-algae-bloom in your tank is whether you rinse your food, then you very well may have bigger questions to ask besides whether rinsing your food matters.
If you rinse LRS, you're losing at least some of the probiotics you paid for. I do rinse the solution off of @Reef Nutrition ROE since I lose no food value in that case.....I have no idea how the shipping solution breaks down in the tank nutrient-wise, although it's technically harmless. So I know I don't need to rinse ROE, but is rinsing it a "good idea" even in a small way?Put it another way...
If the difference between algae-bloom and no-algae-bloom in your tank is whether you rinse your food, then you very well may have bigger questions to ask besides whether rinsing your food matters.
Reef Nutrition
We Feed Your Reef
The rinsing makes sense to me if you're using foods that have a preservative of some kind. This is at least somewhat likely with frozen seafood intended for human consumption. And I think that's where the idea originated....otherwise I'm with Ty and it makes no sense....rinsing whole-frozen or processed foods that have no additives is just coral food going down the drain.
Put it another way...
If the difference between algae-bloom and no-algae-bloom in your tank is whether you rinse your food, then you very well may have bigger questions to ask besides whether rinsing your food matters.
@mcarroll We rinse all of our eggs in R.O.E. before bottling. We use RO/DI water and salt to keep the eggs from degradation, and refrigeration takes care of the rest of the stabilization. The liquid surrounding the eggs is clean, and, like you said, if rinsing your food makes or breaks the tank, then you need to revisit your filtration and maintenance techniques.
Chad
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