Hi, I'm new to this forum! I just purchased a young ranchu and am doing my best to find out information on him. I have filtration and water quality and everything sorted out, and I tried to be good and do what research I could before getting him, but I am only now discovering that I didn't know all the questions to ask before hand...

My ranchu is around 1.5-2", a little guy in a 18-20 gallon tank where there is also a sailfin pleco. I thought that flake food would be ok for my ranchu, but he seems to be ignoring it he lets it sit on the surface until it eventually gets dragged down and then the pleco eats it. My ranchu was quite fond of peas, but I had to cut them up into really small pieces for him to be able to eat a chunk decently, so I now know that food for big fish won't necessarily work for him. He wants to eat my floating koi pellts, but they're way to big for his little mouth and he just pops them out of the water when he tries to eat them. Can somebody recommend a brand (I daresay a cheap one?) of floating pellet that, once swelled to full size, will fit in his mouth? Unfortunately I don't have a lot of money to spend on buying food after food trying to find one that works, so if I can get a bag that will be perfect right from the start then that will be ideal. I was thinking maybe some of the small floating ciclid pellets might work?

I realize my question on food is probably a dumb one...but I'm primarily and invert person doing breeding studies with apple snails that dominate all my other tanks. My fish knowledge is pretty limited, but I really want to give my little ranchu the best home I can, and reading this forum has been a good starting place for me

Try goldfish pellets from Tetra or Sera or Hikari. They're all good. Flake food isn't that good for goldfish. They swallow up too much air in the process and might get SBD. Hope this helps.

Any goldfish food brand will do for now. Those cheapo lil ones will do. But of course, with such a beautiful fish, who wants to give him cheapo food.

Since fancy goldies bodies are pretty squished up, they often have trouble with flipping. Floating foods can cause flipping in succeptable goldies. Perhaps from the extra air in the food... perhaps from gulping air when feeding. One of my goldies flips from flakes even if they are soaked before feeding them. I wouldn't feed floating pellets or flakes.

I'd feed a sinking pellet along with veggies. Be sure to soak the pellets in tank water before feeding to get them moistened up. For dinner each nite, I feed my goldies 1 part shrimp or krill and 3 parts veggies (peas, green beans and lima beans).

I'd also move the pleco out of the goldie tank. I've seen pics of the injuries to goldies from a pleco latching onto them. You don't want either applie snails or plecos in with goldies cuz when goldie's sleeping, he looks like dinner to them.

Well, the pellet I got is supposed to be floating but quite a few of the pellets sink anyway. I will soak it and drop the pellets in the feeding bowl that the peas and such go in. Thanks for the help! I think I need to get some updated goldfish books too...the ones I've got are turning out to be not-so-great.

I think the pleco will be ok. I have had him for a really long time and he has had plenty of opportunity to show any evil nature about eating soft-bodied slow-moving fish, and hasn't; I don't think he has a mouth built for it since he has suckered onto my hand a few times and isn't very strong or raspy, he won't eat anything but really mushy food that's falling apart. The only fish he wasn't 100% compatible with was a very spikey spoted rafael that got put in with him temporarily and kept trying to wedge underneith him. He was in with a danio of mine that was so old and with such long fins that he couldn't even move as fast as my ranchu, and the danio used to go sit on the bottom right by the pleco's head (wierd behavior for a danio, but that one was 5 years old at the time). I will keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior, and if I see any wierdness from the pleco I will clear out another similarly sized tank and give it to the ranchu.

How about just trying lots of fresh food? I feed mine stuff I'm having for dinner most of the time! Spinach, peas, squash, green beans, bananas, grapes, califlower, some small fresh shrimp I brought home from a buffet, whitefish and salmon. You have to chop it up real small, but it's really cheap to feed 'em this way. Then maybe you can afford a good small sinking pellet like Pro-gold, and it will last a looong time!

So then I can feed him most of the stuff I feed my large snails, cool! Is there a way to make vegies other than peas sink? I have to use plant weights and clips with the lettuce and collard green leafs I put in for the snails, but I don't think I can do that for bite-size pieces. I know carrots will eventually take on enough water that they sink, but they tend to be pretty nasty by that time.

Most of the stuff I feed sinks. I just shave or chop frozen bits off, soak 'em in tank water, then pour the tank water and bits into the tank a little at a time. I do boil my peas and green beans for a second before I chop them up.

Robin

yea, I just defrost in tank water warmed in the microwave before feeding mine shrimp, green beans, peas and lima beans.

I was out of town so I missed the last replies, but I will start freezing stuff from now on and then thawing, sounds good! I guess it's the freezing that makes the peas sink and not just the fact that they're peas...I should've figured that out lol.

My little guy, now dubbed "Willy", was acting worryingly uninterested in all the food I was giving him the evening I got back, and then I discovered that the person left as caretaker had misread my directions and was feeding twice the normal amount of everything twice a day boy is he a fat little fish now...at least the water stayed ok. He's also taken to eating tons of algae too, which I gather is a good thing for him.

*laugh* I'm sure Willy enjoyed it! glad your biofilter was able to handle the overfeeding! Be sure to vacuum it well with the next partial water change.

I'm miffed. Because I was starting to have algae issues on my plants, I cut down the number of hours of light over my goldie tank and that nice carpet of green algae on the side walls disappeared. I always used to see them grazing on it. Gotta be good for them cuz it's what they'd be browsing on in a more natural setting.

I get bags of frozen veggies. My snails get green beans regularly and seem to love them.