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Aquarium guides/What to feed goldfish

What to feed goldfish

Feed goldfish a sinking goldfish pellet once or twice a day, as much as they eat in a couple of minutes, plus blanched peas, spinach or zucchini a few times a week. Many keepers give fancy goldfish sinking or soaked food. Floating, sinking or tilting has several causes, including infection, so a change of food may not fix it.

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Shown: a red-cap oranda. Photo: Benson Kua, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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The staple

Goldfish are omnivores that graze all day in the wild. A sinking pellet made for goldfish, with plant matter in it, suits them better than tropical flakes. Many keepers give fancy goldfish food that sinks or has been soaked.

Vegetables

Blanched, shelled peas, spinach, lettuce and zucchini give fiber that keeps digestion moving. Remove what is left after a few hours.

How much

Goldfish always look hungry; that is not a reason to feed more. They produce a lot of waste, so overfeeding shows up quickly as cloudy water and ammonia. A goldfish that floats, tilts or swells and does not recover in clean water needs a vet who treats fish: bloating and dropsy. Fancy goldfish care.

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