I bought some pro gold from goldfish connection, the little pellets, not the big ones (my fish are still really small), and it's disintegrating in the water. Are they supposed to do that?

Should I just not be presoaking the pellets? The way I soak them is I take a little bit of tank water out and put it in a little cup, and then I zap the cup for 10 seconds in the microwave to get it slightly warm, and then I trop a few pellets in the cup. This worked great with the other pellets I had, it made them nice and soft for the fishies to eat. But with the pro gold, it just disintegrates them into fine grained mush in less than a minute.

The pellets seem a little hard to give to the fish with out soaking them. Can they digest something that hard?

Am I doing this wrong?

When I first ordered ProGold, I asked Rick if soaking was necessary and he said no.

How big are your fish? Most likely they can handle it. If you're concerned, perhaps you could crush the pellets a bit (between two spoons) before you put it in the tank. That's what I used to do when my fry was too small to eat the whole pellet but too big for the powdery fry food.

Okay so then I won't bother with soaking them. That'll make it a lot easier to feed them :D

My fish are more than large enough to eat the pellets whole (sometimes they gobble two at a time), they just seemed a little hard, and people keep talking about soaking to make sure there isn't any air in them. I can't imagine anything that sinks as fast as pro gold having much air at all.

My take on this issue is like this: don't soak the food, as the hardness of the pellet helps regulate the pace that the goldfish are eating at. When the pellet is soaked and soft, the goldfish can eat continuously, instead of taking time to chew.

But there's the air-bubble attached to the pellet, so I think it's important to swish the pellets in a little bit of water, just for 2-3 seconds until the bubbles all fall off, then immediatly put it in the tank. That's how I do it.

I don't soak my progold either. According to Rick the way the food is made all air is pressed out so that it will not swell. That is most of the reason other foods do.