Am I feeding my fish enough? Every time I feed them, they go frantic - like they're starving! I only have to enter the room sometimes and you can see them racing around. I think they'd tap on the glass if they could lol.

Other times of the day, they don't do much at all - but feeding time, which incidently, is twice a day (pinch of food between my thumb and forefinger for three of them) they go crazy

What is the recommended amount (in an easy to understand way please )

A hungry goldfish is a healthy goldfish. The recommended amount is all the food ur goldfish can eat in about 4-5 minutes. So u might wanna stay and watch ur fish for 5 minutes when feeding, and add food accordingly if they got no more to eat

for example: i gave my fish some sinking pellets (pre-soaked of course), then i watched them eat & chew. as soon as some of them finish chewing, i put more in. do that for 5 minutes, then i calculate how much food i gave them e.g. 20 pieces of pellets. So for the next feeding u can just put 20 pellets at once. u might wanna add a bit more every few weeks also, as ur fish grows they gonna need more food

hope that helps

So are we saying if they eat it all within a couple of minutes - give more and more until the five minutes are up?

if they stopped chewing after a couple of minutes and there's no food left, give them more.

btw, some people say give as much food as ur goldies can eat in a couple of minutes, some said in 4-5 minutes, and i definitely know some experienced ppl that feed their goldies as much as they can eat in 30 minutes!! it's up to u really, but i personally think 4-5 minutes is pretty generous

And.... is that twice a day or more? Thankyou by the way

Yeah twice a day

oh.. i feed mine a pinch of flakes twice a day, i dont really think about how long they take to eat it.. are mine not getting enough food then?

They might be, they might not. Try watching to see how long it takes to eat what your giving them...you'll find out pretty quickly.

okies thanks

I feed mine a pinch o' flakes, a pinch o' crumbles, and a pinch o' floating pellets. Then whilw they are eating those I toss 3 sinking pellets towards the back of the tank....for them to find later.

Then in the evening I give them pinch o' flakes and crumbles!

Oh dear I don't think I've been feeding my fishies enough. What about peas--how many should you feed?

I would drop in a half of a pea....see if your fish gobble it all up. If they do you could move up to a whole pea the next time. If they don't eat them right away i scoop it out as it can be messy!

Some good info here... I think I'll have to increase their portions.

The back of my container gives some conflicting info: "Feed... as much as your fish can eat in 2-3 minutes. (For example, one crisp per one-inch fish per feeding.)"

I end up giving a little more than 1 crisp per 1 inch because in 2-3 minutes, they would eat the entire container!

My tank is finally cycled, so it can't hurt too much to experiment and treat them to a little more. Hopefully they'll begin to grow more noticably.

I have trouble with this too, being so new. I recently adopted four giant commons, between 5 and 10". I think they might eat the whole big container in 2-3 minutes if I dumped it all in at once! I have been giving them sinking pellets in the morning (like a tablespoon full), then a tablespoon of crisps in the evening, with an occasional pea every few days. I am going to try some lettuce with them soon too.

But they always look/act hungry so it is hard to tell! They, unfortunately, suck onthe gravel, so that makes me think they are really hungry. Is that true? Their new tank will have river rocks that should be too big for that.

:-)

Jen, goldfish are aaalways hungry when they are sucking the gravel its them searching for food, its their natural piggy instincts as in the wild (as carp!) they would be continuously searching and continuosly eating.
id say you dont need to feed anymore than you are now, especialy with the ammoina problems, just keep the temp cool as the colder it is the less they eat.. i think

Sometimes when i feed my goldies, I'll put about 15 pellets in (i have 6 goldies), wait til they gobble it up, give them about 15- 20 more, and in about 10 minutes they eat it all, then i give them about 15 MORE pellets, and its gone in less than 8 mins. Are they eating too much? I know that in the wild they fill themselves up whenever they get the chance b/c they never know when the next meal will come, but are they hurting themselves eating all this food? ( yes i presoak!! of course)

Thanks for any advice!!

HI Heather

I know you have 6 fish, but in all you are feeding appx. 45 Pellets in less than a 15 Min. time span, That seems like an awful lot. Now this is just me but if I were you I would maybe cut back a bit more like 10-15 in a feeding session.
They will always beg too, That is what goldies are famous for, Trust me I have a hard time walking by my crew and not dropping a lil treat in there.

Hope that helps some. ....

Yes it helps!! Thanks again!!!