ive been feeding my fish hikari lionhead pellets, and they seem to enjoy them, except i'm not too sure how many to feed them. i feed them by hand because the common can eat like 6 of them before they even hit the bottom of the tank, and so i'm trying to spread the food out individually to make sure each fish gets a proper amount. what is a good number to feed each fish? the common is about 4 inches long, my lionhead/ranchu is about 2 1/4" and my fantail(though we're pretty sure its an oranda now) is around 2 1/2". my feeding schedule is usually something like: feed them pellets when i wake up, feed them pellets around 5 hours later, feed them freesedried bloodworms in another 5 hours, then feed them peas in another 5 hours. so thats 4 feedings per day. I'm not trying to use the old method of see how many they can eat in 2 minutes since im feeding them so often, so what do you guys think is a good number of pellets to feed? for bloodworms, i can't really say how much i feed them since its hard to really tell, but for peas, i feed them each 1. right now im feeding them each 2 pellets a session, so thats 4 pellets a day each, then 1 pea each, and some bloodworms. should i feed them more pellets?

Well alot depends on the fish and how big they are. Feeding 4 times a day I would go very lightly on each one. Remember gf are like pigs they will eat until they can't move and start having problems, constipation being only one of them.
May I ask why you want to feed that often?

Some of us like to feed twice a day, because I know I wouldn't want to only eat once daily.

I have cut back to feeding once a day for 2 reasons

1. More food, more waste; more waste, the higher the toxicity; the higher the toxicity, the quicker the nice fishies die. And I find that very hard.
2. Leaner, longer lived -- or so my doctor tells me.

I alternate Lionhead pellets, green peas, and frozen brine scrimp or blood worms. What I as told by a dealer was 3-5 pellets per day for 3" fish. I have this little scoop that came with a Seachem kit and I put 3 scoops for 5 fish ranging from 3 to 6 inches, totaling 35-40 pellets.

i feed them 4 times a day to try to get them a wide variety of food and nutrients daily so that their body never has to wait for veggies and whatnot. ive heard that for humans, eating small amounts of food daily is better than afew big meals because it keeps your metabolism up, which actually makes you leaner and helps with digestion.
im wondering though, does feeding say 6 pellets at once create more waste than 6 pellets spread out in 3 feeding sessions? i would think it would because the fish eat it all at once, but won't take out all the nutrients fast enough because theres so much food to move, whereas if you only feed them 2 pellets a session, they can use all their digestive power for those 2 pellets and get all thats in it. I dont think im really overfeeding them either, though thats why i want to know whats the recommended amount of pellets to feed. i seriously think 3 pellets per day is too little because they each eat that many before the pellets even hit the bottom of the tank, and theyre sinking pellets, so they eat 3 pellets in like 4 seconds.

Yes, but...

Goldfish will over eat and I think overeating contributes to problems with the swim bladder.

I sometimes feed pellets in the am and peas in the evening.