also, will it help goldfish get off the bottom of the tank????

Don't know about getting him off the bottom...But I give mine peas once a week, some one who knows will prolly respond soon!!

Sarah

I give mines peas every other day. I prevents swim bladder problems

not a good diet gold fish, like humans need a variety of food

There's lots of other veggies you can feed as well. I personally think it's the roughage (fiber) in fresh veggies that helps with bouyancy issues that involve flipping. From a recent experience with flake, I think flipping is due to gas in the intestine from processed foods. Most processed foods don't have much roughage and contains lots of processed carbs.

I feed mine green peas every day, along with duckweed, green beans, lima beans and cocktail shrimp or worms or daphnia or krill. In their gel food, this time I used tuna, greens, broccoli and brussel sprouts. The next batch will include sardines, kale, red bell peppers and I'm not sure what else yet.

WHat is this gell food ppl talk about???

you use unflavored gelatine to make gel food.
Add other ingredients.
Some people use their pellets or other commercial food in it.
Some people use fish and veggies blended up.
Some add vitamin powder.

Kinda like jello for fish.

There's a sticky at the top of this forum with info on making gel food.

Aside from how often, how much peas should a give my 3 inch gold fish..?

I fed my fish their 1st peas last night... they seemed 2 like them! B)

it is a good practice to feed peas follows with fasting.. this boost the effect in preventing swim bladder problem..

I adopt a radom feeding concept.. where I dun want to stick to a routine, but peas + fasting is a must once per week or at least once every two weeks.. and sometime I will introduce a full week of nutritional feeding where the fishes will be fed with nice nutritional home cooked food without fasting that week and definitely once or twice peas + fasting the following week...

i have a huge bag of peas just for the goldies, i feed them peas once every 3 days.

fasting -_-, i never fast in the warm weather i feed em 3 times a day when it hits 70+, it makes my pearlscale look REALLY! fat! kinda cute in a way.

As an Oranda enthusiast I'm beginning to wonder if certain breeds of goldfish require different diets. I most often feed Hikari Lionhead to the Orandas, but have noticed that these pellets along with some other types of sinking pellets I've fed don't readily absorb water and remain hard. With young goldfish I try to soak pellets so they are easier for the fish to eat. I may be nuts, but I imagine hard dry pellets in the reputed compacted, twisted, convoluted digestive tracts of short, fat bodied Orandas causing severe digestive problems like constapation and impaction which lead to other types of problems and eventually death. Right? Wrong? I'm starting to feed peas at least once a day, but peeling a cup of peas every day is rather time consuming. Other postings in this thread suggest other types of greens; beans etc. I am thinking of trying chopped Romain lettuce, fresh spinach? I've seen zucchini squash in the goldfish tanks at lfs. I'm taking it the fresh green beans are cooked to make them more palatable? Another part of this question has to do with the extremely rapid growth of young goldfish obtained by some importers. Fish that are 3 months old or less are large and have well developed heads. Obviously they've been fed special (secret) foods that aren't available to us, the buyer. I'm wondering if this extremely rapid early growth and then the abrupt switch to dry, pelleted foods doesn't lead to problems down the line? I doubt that it makes any difference if the goldfish are in tanks or ponds, but mine are in ponds. The only living greens in the pond with the Orandas are water lilies (which the fish don't eat) and the algae that grows on the pond sides, the lily pots and the lily stems. The water is crystal clear (UV sterilizer in use).
Milo

I agree and feed mine exclusively fresh food and gel food (Color Enhancing Gel, Gel). I think they should get veggies at least once a day.

I don't cook any of the veggies that I feed. I just defrost them in tank water.

I also keep several grow-out tubs for plants, so I can give them duckweed, azolla and frogbit daily. Can't keep it in the tank cuz they eat it faster than it can grow. They absolutely love it.

Spinach is good occasionally. Very nutritious, however, it contains oxalic acid which inhibits the absorbtion of calcium and iron.

Someone on the koi board planted some ornamental sweet potatoe vines by his pond and his koi love the leaves. I got a sweet potatoe yesterday and am going to try and get it to grow so I can see if my goldies like it.