In the fall exchange I just got some "special" sinking food from the U.S. My problem is that apart from peas, my too old guys have never been fed anything that sinks, and quite literally I dont think they know what they are meant to be doing with them...
Greedy guts managed to eventually decide he had to do what he did with peas, but could only see them if I could drop them an inch from his nose, but poor quiet boy dashes away when you open the lid, so was no where near them when they dropped.
Now I suppose I can rely on them rooting thru the gravel now and coming across the left overs, but as Boy is the one I really want to feed, I could do with some ideas?
How can I make sure he gets some? He panics if I try and separate him from Fish, and I dont think I will get him to eat in that state... any thoughts?

hi pea
havent tried mine yet.
have you tried soaking them first, this way they will sink slower and be bigger for them to see too. just an idea.

I have the same trouble with my fish. Milly is ill and needs medi-gold (which a friend shipped over from america just for her) but shes always had floating food before and she can't work out the sinking food. At first it really scared her but now she tries to go for it but she always goes as slow as she would for flake food, which of course just floats around, and it just sinks too fast for her I too tried separating her from Lilly but to no avail as they both just went crazy from being apart.

Sorry, this isn't really helping... I'd be very interested to see if anyone replies with a good solution to this though.

When I first got my 2 black moors, they were very stupid about finding their food. I would feed them at the same place every time and they eventually got the hang of it, though it tood a long time. You can try making gel food for the fish, you can chop it up into pieces that are larger than pellets (and easier to see) and it sinks more slowly too. Gel food is especially good for floatly fish. If your fish isn't afraid of your fingers you can hold your fingers with some food at the top of the water and when the fish comes up to investigate you can feed him from your fingers, or drop the food right by him. Another way of feeding is using a cone feeder, for anything small or soft enough to be sucked through the holes. You can just leave the food there until the fish realize its there and eat it, and after that they learn that's where the food is pretty quickly. If one fish eats and the other doesn't get it, maybe you can put a divider in the tank, so that they're still technically together and can see each other, but can't eat each other's food, until they learn how to eat sinking food. Hope this helps a bit.

Sands > ooo yep good idea, I'll try soaking a bit and see how it swells! Ta!
Jenny > Nice to know its not just my fish that are clueless Hope you get some ideas from this post too!
valkyrie> Putting it in gel food is a top idea, thanks for that, didnt think of combining it with something "larger"...suppose I could also pop them in peas! Havent heard about cone feeders before, I shall have an investigate! Thanks alot!

Hi Guys! I, too, had this problem when I switched from flakes to ProGold/Medigold; my fish were absolutely clueless! However, as you know, most GF are lil piggies and they will figure it out! Do not, and I repeat (especially for Medigold) do not soak pellets first. Just hang in there and your fish will work it out, I promise! Consider your fish in training! I still think my fish miss top feeding, but it is so much better for them if they don't (preventive measure against SBD probs). I give them peas once a week and Rosie will take these from my fingers...it gives both of us some nostalgia!!! I had real problems getting Rosie to eat Medigold at first (quite literally spit them out), so, I soaked in tiny tiny bit of fishy water ( ...mine was tuna..but I am sure anything that has the scent would work..someone else here recommended shrimp sauce) but only for 30 secs or so! This worked very well and I only had to do it twice and from then on out she ate the Medigold!

No worries...your fish will catch on..be patient!

thanks for that lisal. i wont pre soak in future then. as ive never had these pellets before, how many do i give per fish. finn looked like he wasnt enjoying his and only ate 1. bamboo liked his and had two so whats the amount to give? should these only be given if your fish look unwell or instead of flake all the time?
pea, whats the website you got your info from? my female betta ate one, couldnt stop her.

Sandy! Well, I'm no expert for sure but if you are feeding Medigold you must feed only Medigold for about 20 days. (Same theory as antibiotics for us humans..finish all of this medication...); otherwise (I think) they build up immunity to it?

As far as how much per fish...I've been quite confused on this issue myself. For my two fish (Cheech is about 3.0" inches long nose to hiney and then tailfins extend another 3" and from top to bottom (at belly point) he is about 2.0 inches...Rosie about the same in length but she is smaller..only about 1" from top to bottom) and I dropped about 6 pellets in 1X per day. I think Cheech ends up with 4 and Rosie 2. Cheech is a food vacumn! Someone once told me that a GF tummy is about the size of their eyes...this came from LFS store person who I now believe does not know squat about GF and I no longer frequent his store but that has always stuck in my mind.....

Daryl or Ranchu or Laurie P would be an excellent source to PM on how much; I've always had some other issue and forget to ask! By the looks of the gift pic from Daryl...how nice!! She has hooked you up with a good supply! Rick from Goldfish Connection tells me medigold and/or progold does not need to be refrigerated. Daryl has that thing that does vacumn packing! How nice..keeps your food quite fresh and she sent you plenty!!!!!

Only feed Medigold in response to illness/infection. According to goldfish connection it can be fed up to a 60 day period. Was it just Mgold you received?

P.S. I am just thrilled for you that you have some "special food" now! It was hard struggling with you when your fishies were so ill and not being able to recommend something you could get right away!

I have plenty of progold here....if all you received was Mgold...I'm happy to send you supply of progold when you are ready!

If they browse on the bottom like mine do, they'll find it.

At nite when I feed shrimp and fresh veggies, it takes them several minutes to find and clean it all up cuz there's so much chewing to do to eat the fresh stuff. I never see anything left afterwards.

One lady I know used a product called garlic guard that makes the food smellier.

I tap on the glass at feeding time. My goldies know what that means now and get all excited and do their I'm such a hungry fish and she's gonna feed me now dance. They come up to take their bites of shrimp out of my hand. It's very cool. I get tickled at the Ryunkin. He'll have his mouth full and be chewing like crazy... very intently, and then something else drops in front of him and he wants to eat it soooo badly but can't cuz it won't fit in his mouth! Pretty funny.

thank you lisl for all that info. i will save it then for when the fish are ill. i got medigold from daryl. is progold different? is that something that can be fed all the time. if thats the case then i would love some, thank you. could i send you something as a swap maybe? dont know what we have that you dont though. maybe you could ask emma, she might know.
yes your right it might have helped during that terrible time, but who knows maybe they wouldnt have gotten any better. will i pm you with my address.?

Just wondering why you say not to soak MediGold? Does it have anything to do with the antibiotics dissolving in the water? This could be the only reason I could think of. But how much does it actually dilute? My fish is very sensitive to SBD and I could only feed 1 pellet at a time if I didn't presoak.

From what I've read on it, they mix the antibiotics in with the food rather than just coating the food. How much leaching you'd get soaking it I don't know.