I've learnt so much from reading through this web site about which foods are right for which goldfish.. but I just want to be 100% sure that if I change my fishes diet I won't hurt them.

I have 2 fish and they are only tiny.. just over 2 years of age.

I've been feeding mine commercial flakes and bloodworm once every couple of weeks.. and I know this is bad.. I'm just worried if I try something different it won't agree with them.. and they've been doing so well.

The reason I want to change though is because my bumpkin is flake-intolerant. I tried keeping him off the flakes for a couple of days and he was so much better.. he didn't have to spend his days trying to stop himself from floating to the top, poor lil thing.

Can you give me some safe ideas about what to feed baby goldfish like this?

I would REALLY appreciate it

Thanks guys!

Hey fishfan!

You hear about floaty fancies alot, but I have a floatie Shubunkin too! Here's what I feed him that seems to help: frozen spinach, peas,frozen shrimp, green beans, egg whites, bananas, grapes, freeze dried tubifex worms, orange slice, earthworms, and krill. That should give you a start My guy is about 1year old I think. He can get floaty on either flakes or even the high priced pellets!

When you do feed flakes or pellets, feed very little, enough to eat in 30 sec.

Your goldie will love his new diet, but if he is used to just floating food, give him a little time to learn the new stuff is food





Robin

Throw those flakes away.

I do the fresh veggie thing too. add kiwi lima beans, and zucchini to the list.
You could whip up some Gel food. See the sticky at the top of the forum and my
goldie nutrition page.

dataguru, how do you prepare your lima beans? I boiled mine for a bit, and skinned them, but they were very messy, and the fish didn't like them at all.

Robin

I jsut thaw, peel and break into bite sized pieces.

I'll try that. Also, I just tried a lemon slice, and the fish loved it!

Robin

Did they really! Wow. Did it affect your pH?

Lemon slices?? I never would have thought that fish would like that! Did you remove the rind or just put a slice in and then remove it after they lost interest nibbling it? And I would like to know about the ph thing too. This is an interesting idea! Thanks!

~Mochashello

Thanks everyone!!!

I've printed your nutrition page Dataguru!!! That has been SOOO helpful!! I couldn't have asked for anything more

I looked at the ingredients on my flake packets and everythings wheat wheat wheat..

Makes you think.. because I'm wheat intolerant myself. It makes me gassy and bloated... maybe my bumpkins the same hehe!!!

There's some decent nutrition references online. Lots of it isn't specific to goldies tho, but carp/koi are fairly close relatives. I pulled a bunch of RDAs recently and pulled them into a spreadsheet along with deficiency and overdose symptoms and sources for a lot of the vitamins and minerals. Also found some research-based info on the optimal amino acid profile for carp/koi along with essential fatty acids. Got all the food nutrient info I've pulled down so far organized in a spreadsheet, but it's so huge, its a bit unwieldy. I'm trying to figure out how I want a web application organized where i could let te user pick a food and view the nutritional breakout along with the RDA for comparison. or to put together a combination of ingredients and it would generate nutritional content of the gel with RDAs. It'd be cool to have pop-up notes to warn the user when something's too high or low. Color coding would be cool and do-able.

Yea, I was shocked when I read the ingredients on the algae wafers that flipped Lumpy... might as well have been spirulina flavored corn flakes. Yum Yum. On a side note, if you feed your carnivores dried foods, check out the ingredients... probably be the same thing happening cuz heat treated corn and soy are fairly digestable and cheaper sources of protein.

I fed some flakes for a while and you wouldn't believe the floaty poop.... way different than fresh food poop. slimey and brown and full of air bubbles. ick. The flakes had been sitting around on a shelf and when I went out of town, the daughter/her friends decided to feed the goldies a big meal of flakes. They flipped my big moor Lumpy at the top of the tank. This is the same fish who was stuck on the bottom for a couple of months not too long ago. She switched back to feeding the gel/fresh food diet and he was back to normal by the time I came home... didn't hear about *that* till much later after I got home. *chuckle*

The gas and bloating are exactly what I think's happening with a lot of the goldies with bouyancy issues. Did you check out the references on acidophilus and the gassy bugs on the gel pages? Does that make sense from what you know about wheat intolerance?

Recently, I had a great convo over on Koivet with a guy who leads necropsy sessions at the Koi shows. He thinks the flipping is because the top of the fish is more dense (muscle and bone mostly) than the bottom where you got all your organs squished up in there... so if the swim bladder is too small or malformed, the bottom is naturally more bouyant than the top of the fish. ok... that would work for me for the fish stuck on the bottom flipped. tho I don't think that's all that going on there--in that case with a too small or underinflated swim bladder, any GI gas could be enough to cause the flipping. He also thinks a fish stuck upside down at the top of the tank is because the swim bladder is overinflated. I have a really hard time with that giben the anatomy, cuz I think if the swim bladder is chronically overinflated, that the fish should be stuck upright at the top of the tank.... not flipped. That has to be gas doing it. assuming of course the fish doesn't have anything else bad going on that makes them to weak too stay upright (e.g. an infection, etc).

Do keep us updated on the bouyancy issues. So far, two for two fish with flipping that have tried the acidophilus gel aren't flipping any more. It seemed to help one of them tolerate eating medikoi without flipping too badly. Haven't tried my moor on any of the commercial foods yet to see if the acidophilus has altered his intestional flora like I think it should.

Have you tried acidophilus for your wheat intolerance? Is it the gassy bacteria in the intestine that are causing the symptoms in response to starches in the wheat or is it more of an allergic response?

Thanks for the info, dataguru!

As for the lemon, it didn't change my PH, I only left it in for about a 1/2 hour, I fed it just like an orange. They really did seem to like it!

Robin

Dataguru, in answer to your question..

It wasn't wheat intolerance hehe... even though I was sure he had the same problem as me.

I have changed his diet now and he hasn't floated since. I've been playing around with the different foods you've mentioned and it's all working beautifully!! They go nuts over it!!

Although, the only disadvantage is that the filter gets clogged quicker with fresh spinach and things eh?

I still feed my fish his flakes, but presoak them first for about 5 minutes first. He's doing really well.. probably has heaps more energy now because he used to spend the entire day trying to push himself down into the water!

It's a bit of a shame really, because I'm from New Zealand and with the small city I live in, no one knows that much about fish. I know more than any of the people working in our petshops - who used to tell me that you only need to buy one kind of flake which will take care of your all your fishes nutritional requirements!!

Plus it's really heartbreaking.. because you can tell when you go into these petshops they don't care about the fish at all - there's always sick floating fish everywhere.. and I often see decaying corpses sitting at the bottom of tanks!! These places don't deserve to be in business!!

So I just want to thank you all here for your great advice.. you've taught me so much! If I had relied on the advice from people in the pet shops here I would be buying new fish weekly!