Food

Goldfish eat just about anything. This includes any plants you try to put in your tank. Keeping that in mind it is a good idea not to put any live plants in with goldfish, there are two exceptions for this though, when your fish are breeding, and when you are raising young fry, but these are discussed in other areas.

Unless of course you want to feed your fish live plants, but aquarium plants are often rather expensive just for food.

Goldfish should be fed 2 or 3 times a day for a couple of minutes. Giving them enough food to eat in 5 minutes, 3 times a day is better then giving them one feeding for 15 minutes.

Considering that goldfish will eat anything, it's up to you to decide what to feed them. Until recently most goldfish food has been based on the belief that goldfish ate only plants, however they also eat insects, worms and other fish.

There are three types of food available to buy from most pet shops for goldfish. Flake food, pellet food and frozen food. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages.

Flake food can be crushed into a fine powder for very small fish, but it often is lower in nutritional value then the other two.

Pellet food either sinks or floats, if it sinks the fish could lose it and the food will end up polluting the water. If it floats then it contains air pockets. Either way pellet food will expand after time and food expanding in a fish's stomach is not a good idea.

Frozen food is often too expensive to be fed as part of a staple diet for your fish. Although as a once a week snack they are not bad. The same with live food bought from pet stores.

That is what is available in stores. If you choose pellet food it is best to soak the food in a dish of water for 5 or 10 minutes before feeding it to your fish. This will cause the food to expand before the fish eats it. Pellet food will also allow fish to get a mouthful of food and not much air which will make them sleepy, as what happens with flake food.

Goldfish will eat a number of other things as well. Peas (remove the shell), oranges, watermelon, romaine lettuce, earthworms, insects, small fry and chopped shrimp just to name a few.

Overall a fish needs a balanced diet just like us and it is a good idea to feed them things on occasion other then just their everyday food.

[Introduction | Water | Plants and Food | Breeding | Fry Care | Types of GoldFish | Sick Fish | Pictures]

RECOMENDED BOOKS & LINKS

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Recommended book from Amazon.com

The more you know about your fish, the more joy they will bring you!

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©1999-2004 Peter Sadlon
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