Frozen Beefheart

I make my own beefheart and freeze it for future use.

I've always just broke off a piece and let it defrost in the water. Now I'm hearing one should defrost before feeding.

Is this really necessary? Am I harming the fish in some way? I am feeding fry this way.

Thanks,

I've never defrosted frozen beef heart in 25 years of discus keeping.

I learned from Liz to put frozen chunks through a salad shooter. I fill up baggies with it and it works real nice.

I shave the frozen beefheart with a cheese grater.

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The salad shooter is a cool thing I learned a long time ago from Carol Roberts. But when it comes down to it there is nothing wrong with throwing it in frozen. It thaws fast enough when put in 82 degree water.

I also use a cheese grater similar to Francis's for the smaller Discus and for the larger Discus I just break off a chunk off of a frozen one pound block of beef heart. Sometimes the block of BH is frozen too hard to break off a chunk so I'll run some warm water over it for 15 seconds. So far no brain freeze.

Cliff

So here's a suggestion to reduce work. I put ~1 LB of ground beefheart into freezer bags and flatten them out. These stack in the freezer. Every so often, I'll defrost one bag for 20 minutes, cut away the bag and cut the beefheart into 1" squares with a cleaver. The squares going into a container.

My morning activity involves throwing squares into each tank. Melts in the tank, not in my hand.

When I made my Beefheart recipe, I 3D printed several grids. After running the mixture through the blender, I spread it out and forced it into the grids and then placed it in the freezer. Once frozen, I pushed the cubes out of the grid and stored it plastics bags in the freezer for future use. Makes things very convenient.

I do thaw it before feeding, but only because I find spreading it around the tank a little helps reduce the aggression an make sure everyone gets to eat.

Robert