What do you feed your goldfish?

[Lisak1]

We've always fed our fish an appropriately sized koi food and the goldfish just had to make due. The pellets were really too big for the goldfish to get in their mouth, but they would nibble away and appeared satisfied. But now that our pond is mostly goldfish, we're thinking we may switch to a goldfish sized food. I don't want flake food, but many of the pellet or stick fish foods I'm researching are sold as koi/goldfish foods, without really specifying the size of fish. The only exception is a few brands that sell a mini-pellet food for really young fish.

Do you worry about the size of the pellets/food you feed your goldfish? Or amy I overthinking this?

 

[Amsomething]

I only feed my fish a few times per week, for they eat out of the pond the rest of the time. I feed them a combination of:

• Gel food I make with baby food peas, carrots, and spinach.
• Pond sticks that I break up into smaller chunks
• Bloodworms once per week
• Frozen peas that I cut into quarters

Out of the pond, they seem to eat duckweed, algae, plant parts, insects that fall into the pond, water "bugs" (cyclops, I think?), and snail eggs (they are obsessed with the bottoms of the lily leaves, where there are lots of globs of snail egg "jelly").

My goldfish are growing well, swim around voraciously, and don't gasp at the surface of the water, so I think they are happy and healthy.

 

[Nevermore44]

Assuming your Goldie’s are 4” or larger.... the few brands of pellet koi food that they sell at petsmart is consumed easily by my goldfish without issue. I don’t think they even sell the larger pellet sizes there

 

[Jhn]

@Lisak1 Pretty much do what you did in my large pond, feed them all koi sized pellets and let the goldfish make do.

In my one turtle pond, I have shubunkins, I throw them some small sinking pellets then feed the turtles, which are messy eaters. The fish end up grabbing the leftover bits of turtle pellets as they sink.

 

[Tula]

I think your goldfish could eat small and medium sized pellets sold as koi food.

 

[GBBUDD]

high protein color enhancing kodama large pellets once a week the rest of the time they are on there own.

 

[bagsmom]

My goldfish aren't very big yet. Probably from 3" to 7" long. So I give them those mini pellets you mentioned, just as a special treat.

 

[zinjy]

I haven't been able to get my goldfish to eat anything I give them yet (I've tried some of the foods mentioned here), they either ignore it or look/bite at it and go back to eating algae and bugs, so I guess they are getting enough food already and prefer the options already growing in the pond (I assume this may change as they get larger and there isn't enough to sustain them). The only thing that doesn't already exist in the pond that they consume enthusiastically is earthworms that somehow keep falling in.

 

[PondMomma]

Hikari goldfish pellets, good quality decent price.

 

[Lisak1]

Thanks everybody!

 

[Relic]

I used to feed Tetra Pond feed...well, overfeed is more like it, but got tired of cleaning my barrel filter every 3-4 weeks. So now I don't feed (except when visitors want to see them swarm the surface) and the results are outstanding: Crystal clear water, active and healthy fish munching the algae on the sides, no spawning activity this year (after WAY too many babies last year), and a filter that can be ignored for months at a time. Now if somebody would just come take 2 of my Koi away...

 

[addy1]

I feed seldom. Keeps the eggs and fry under control. The fish do just fine.

 

[EricV]

When my goldfish were young, I went out of my way to find the small pellets, about 1/8". Now that they are larger, about 6", I've switched entirely to medium size, about 1/4". They have no problem eating these and will usually grab a few before dropping down to chew. The smallest fish can't eat them, but seem to find enough algae to eventually get big enough.

 

[Amsomething]

I tried something new today-- I plopped a few small spoonfuls of baby food peas into the pond, plopping each mound on a rock that was about 3-4" below the surface of the water. Three of my goldfish went CRAZY for the peas, sucking them up as though they had straws in their mouths! The other fish, however, completely ignored the peas.

I noticed a few hours later that the remnants of the peas were covered in pond snails. So apparently some goldfish and most snails REALLY like baby food peas!

 

[bettasngoldfish]

I buy two different floating foods that are different sizes.