The food you give for goldfish is completely unique than the other types of fishes. It contains less content of protein and more carbohydrate content in it. The goldfish food is being completely prepared by considering and keeping in mind the requirements of Goldfish in terms of nutrients. Hence, when you are searching for a suitable goldfish food, it is appropriate to go with the specific food used for goldfish rather than the normal fish food available in the market.
Goldfish keep on feeding unless there is no food available to them. So, it is harmful to overfeed goldfish as they do not limit themselves from feeding. This overfeeding will make them suffer from digestive issues which will even lead to death sometimes. This overfeeding will also lead to excess production of waste from fishes which will produce toxins in the tanks. These toxins will turn into poison over time and cause severe problems to the fishes. To avoid all these problems, it is important to understand what the goldfish eat and how to feed them in a proper way.
Read: Raising Catfish In Tanks.
The most common foods for goldfish are pellets and flakes. Pellets are the foods which sink into the water, whereas flakes are the foods which float on the water.
As the pellets sink, it would be very difficult to search and remove them if anything seems not eaten by fish. These uneaten pellets have to be removed because there may be few chances of these pellets getting rot causing pollution in the water. However, pellets are the type of fish foods which retain their nutrient content in the water better than the flakes.
When coming to the flake foods which float on water, if consumed by goldfish, there is a chance for the fish to swallow or gulp the air while eating. This happens because as flakes float, the fishes need to come to the surface of the water to eat them. When fishes intake the air, then it causes digestive issues to them. Moreover, the flakes will also lose some content of nutrients as they float on the surface of water due to exposure to air.
Goldfish which grows in the wild, will eat insects, small fishes, bloodworms, etc. Though you could not match the daily feed of your aquarium goldfish to the wild one’s food, you can treat your goldfish with bloodworms, earthworms etc. sometimes.
Goldfish also eats shell removed peas, vegetables which are boiled, orange slices, watermelon slices.
If you opt to choose your goldfish with live food rather than the food which is frozen and dried, then there is a risk of transmission of disease to your goldfish. There are frozen and dried foods available in the market which can be chosen as food for your goldfish. Though they will not be as tasty as live food for your fish, they have the same level of proteins and nutrients like the live ones and with no risk of disease transmission.
It is always important not to overfeed your goldfish. The main thing to remember when growing a goldfish is that they do not have the stomach. As they do not have a stomach, they will never get to know when they are full like humans. They will keep on eating as long as the food is available to them. This too much eating will lead to blockage of the intestine, which in turn leads to digestive issues in the fish. It also causes problems to swim bladder. If you find a long trail of poop behind your goldfish, then it is an indication that you have overfed your goldfish.
Make sure that you are feeding your goldfish only twice or thrice a day that too in small amounts. Add small amounts of food by taking it in tiny pinches for one minute. You should stop feeding the food after one minute and allow your goldfish to take as much as it needs at this time.
Make sure that you remove the uneaten food from the tank after feeding. If you do not remove it, it gets stuck in the tank and becomes rotten. This again pollutes your water. It is better to feed your fish before you change the water in the tank so that you can remove the uneaten food
If the water in the fish tank is of low temperature, then you need to reduce the number of feedings per day for your goldfish. When the temperature is low, then the metabolism of the goldfish decreases. So, if you feed it many times, then due to low metabolism, there would be digestive issues in the fish. If you keep your water at a low temperature, then your goldfish should eat even less than this. Your goldfish’s metabolism slows down at lower temperatures, which means they need less food than when kept in warmer water.
