how do you get frozen food pellets out of container?

I have a 28 gal jbj nano cube with a couple of small clownfish and a small blue damsel. I recently bought a tray with 24 little cubes of frozen fodd but to my observations, my tank only needs about 1/4 of these frozen cubes per feeding. When I try and break them up into smaller pieces they shatter and I end up with fish paste all over the counter and floor and end up wasting alot of food to get what I need out of the container. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

-thestranger66

 

cut them with a knife?

you might have to let it thaw a little bit

 

I know it seems like a pretty obvious answer but I have been cutting them with a knife and I still make a mess each time I was wondering if anyone had some little trick or something.

Thanks for the input though maybe I just do have to wait until they get a little warmer before I start to cut.

 

Warm the knife as well. That may help a bit (remembering this from my childhood, helping feed a 125gal tank )

 

I mix my frozen food in a couple teaspoons of salt water and use what I need to with my turkey baster. Then i freeze the rest of it and thaw it out again when i need to use it. Cutting it is just too messy.

 

if you have only 3 small fish in a 8 gal even a 1/4 of a cube might be too much food. Be careful. I use mysis shrimp cubes and thaw with tank water rinse to get the phosphates out put it in a food processor to chop the shrimp into smaller pieces then refreeze in a zip lock bag with a little tank water.( lay the bag flat in the freezer) then when its frozen you can break the ice while still in the bag into very small pieces. then you can just take out small peices when you need to feed. I just thaw and put in the tank.

 

Use the sharpest knife you have. That one always helps me. I have a couple very small very sharp knives that work well. Another thing that works is sawing it with a serrated knife.

 

Thanks for all the input! I will try these methods and hopefully stop making a mess of my kitchen counter!

 

I cut mine in half with a sharp knife. I only use half the cube to feed. I also rinse it under RO/DI water to get out the packaged frozen water. I put the half cube in a cup with RO water and soak it in selcon, feed half of that and put the left over in the fridge until the next feeding in 2 days. That way I don't waste much food. I put away the other unused half cube in the freezer, btw.

 

In case you are wondering, it is fine to refreeze this stuff after you thaw it out.

I'd thaw, cut (into several servings for future use), refreeze.