Bulk food storage advice

[Ceez]

Many of you have 10 tanks +. That means you have need to buy an appropriate amount of food and I would venture to say that you may buy in bulk. Obviously if the food comes in one bulk container the need to break it down and store properly is essential to preserve the quality of the food and not have a kilo sitting in your fridge that you pull from daily to feed causing the food to go bad sooner than we would all like.

I'm thinking of vacuum sealing my food, adding oxygen absorbers to the bags and freezing what I don't need. Food in smaller quantities is expensive vs buying in bulk but if you can't store it properly it defeats the purpose.

How do you deal with bulk food?

 

[Back in the fold]

Refrigeration is probably the safest but vacuum sealing should be okay and in addition keep it cool . I think a separate refrigerator in the fish room could be very useful . Gives you a place to keep frozen food and brine shrimp eggs and a place to keep a white worm culture and maybe even a live tubifex set up . You will never get to do that with the wife’s kitchen fridge .

 

[GaryE]

I bag it and put it in the freezer. I just bought a kilo of flake - 500 grams of 2 different types. Even bulk food has skyrocketed in price.

 

[Colin_T]

I used to bag it and freeze it too. I would make up ziplock bags with about 2 week's worth of food in and put them into other ziplock bags (3 bags total), then put it in an icecream bucket in the freezer.

Vacuum sealing would also work. Just remove as much air as possible from the bags and keep them cool, dry and dark to maximise freshness.

 

[Back in the fold]

I just bought a kilo

Party at Gary’s house !

 

[Colin_T]

I just bought a kilo.

Party at Gary’s house !

I can't snort flakes anymore, they stick to my sinuses.

 

[Ceez]

I can't snort flakes anymore, they stick to my sinuses.

I'll bring papers

 

[MaloK]

Don't bag them too suspiciously. Labels Like, Bottom feeders, top dwellers, are closely investigated.

 

[fishorama]

LOL, Malok, et al. If they're still sealed they can last longer IMO; no air, less rot. After that I freeze them in usable amounts, maybe a month's worth.

 

[GaryE]

I label mine by the origin of the fish to be fed and the weight. I just put a Colombian kilo in the freezer, along with the livebearer food, the Central American kilo. That way, if anyone ever looks in my freezer, they'll know there's nothing fishy.

The price increases are ludicrous though. Food that was $20 a kilo before the pandemic is now closer to $80, when you add up shipping. I used to buy and freeze 4 or 5 500 gram bags at a time, so I could have variety on offer. I use far less flake now, but I held the line at 2 varieties. It beats the price of the canisters I was buying at the pet shop though.

I've been very loyal to my local store and have bought all my flake there for 2 years, but he's been jacking his prices up for no reason but profit. Shipping and wholesale costs have remained stable, but he's increased prices to silly levels - 40% higher than in the next city over. He has no real competitors, and he's realized that. And so, I went mail order bulk this time. You can't win.

 

[Magnum Man]

I’m no fun, I don’t buy kilos… I do buy repackaged bulk Tilapia foods… Mrs eats these sectioned grapefruit pieces in wide mouth, squared, clear, plastic, quart jars… the Tilapia feed is a grower product, so there are 4 different sizes of feeds, for them as they grow… on the finisher, I typically buy 16 lb. Bags, and have those plastic jars, labeled as to which food it is, and I keep a measuring cup the size, of the amount I feed in each jar, that I’m actually feeding out of, and when I have, enough empty jars, I order another bag… so far I feed it fast enough, that I haven’t had to freeze it yet..

 

[MaloK]

In my region each LFS has very few food varieties, even less for crustaceans, I had to go online from the bat.

Price gouging has become a widespread phenomena, most restaurants here are not even worthy anymore they make so much errors in orders it's ridiculous and shrinkflation is noticeable if your order the same meal a week later.

There's a running scam at MCd where at the pass-trough when you call 10 nuggets, you see they are punching 10... And always receive 6 instead. After a couple "shots" One get tired and goes back to the counter to clarify why this is always happening. And you discover that even the bill in their system has been tempered and now shows 6... So my conclusion is somebody is pocketing the difference.

They are playing on the fact that in french 6 and 10 are pronounced "Six" and "Dix" and sounds nearly identical.

So I park my car every time check my order, go back inside and get 10 more free nuggets, So I get 6 free each time they pull that trick. What a bunch of losers.

I love the way it ends always by MCd loosing money instead of me. So as long as they are going to do this, I'll do that.

The number of errors you can have in a week only on a morning coffee order is so high.. I found a nice little gas station where you can make a much better coffee yourself for the same price, and you don't wait 20 minutes to get it.

You can't win.

Maybe, but constant retributions is a lot of fun. I'm not really the kind to FAFO with. Get me once or twice, it's on me. The rest, will be on you.

I don't understand the mentality of this... But they are losing their customers. Tim's that was great, have now become so bad. I have not stepped in one for a couple years now.

 

[Ceez]

Ive been ordering my food directly from Germany. I won't list the vendor here who is their U.S. affiliate but the increase in pricing is mind blowing. 325g is $49.99 plus shipping from the U.S. and a kilo from Germany is $51.99 plus shipping....


On to the next problem and why I made this thread originally. I think that I may have unknowingly made the food go bad. I take the food out of the refrigerator at night feed and put it back within minutes. On a few occasions I have forgotten to put the food back in the fridge (didnt put it back until the next evening when i fed again) and my thinking is that the condensation from the fridge from being left out got the food damp and possibly made it get moldy? I've noticed that most of the food if not all of it isnt eaten the next day and I'm using my baster to suck it all out. Again this is just my theory and maybe one of you could chime in on similar situations you may have come across.

I'm thinking I'll vacuum seal 250g portions of the food since I feed many different varieties of it. This will minimize losses if I forget to put the food back in the future.

 

[GaryE]

That's pricey....
I take my chances with about 200 grams at a time. The rest isn't opened til I want it, and only quickly. I'm sure there's deterioration once it's out, but I agree with moisture issue with keeping it in the fridge and taking it out is also a potential problem.