Please check out this link to see the fish I'm talking about.

http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=52564

The smaller one is about 4 inches (about 5 months old) and the big one is about 7.5 inches (about 20 months old).

I've been getting conflicting information from all different people. Friends, petshop workers etc.. all are telling me different things and I want to make sure that I'm doing the best for my little friends.

I currently feed them 8 bloodworm pellets a day between them (4 in the morning and 4 in the evening). I usually give them a little pinch of freeze dried bloodworms about half way through the day if I fed them early in the morning like 8 or 9 o'clock.
I know this isn't over the top because the ammonia, nitrites etc are low to non-existant and the fish are healthy. The larger one is still recovering from an external ulcer which seems to be taking a long time but he is recovering and seems to be quite happy and friendly.

I'm still fairly new to the whole fishkeeping thing. Even though I got my first 2 fish nearly 2 years ago, I've only been doing things properly for a couple of months when my fish started getting sick and I looked everything up, only to find out that I was the problem. This resulted in a shopping spree

I just need a little guidance and hope you nice people here at Koko's can help me out, since most of you are veterans and very experienced with all different kinds of situations.

Is bloodworm all you feed? If so then the fish are getting too much protein, so you should feed the bloodworm maybe twice a week as a treat and find pellet food for goldies and also feed them fresh veg and a little fruit. We have a forum for feeding fish so maybe start there at the pinned articles.

As to the amount for each feed, generally what they can eat in a couple of minutes.

All I feed is bloodworm, but not any more. I've got some other pellets and flake food on the shelf so I'll go back to those and do what you said with the bloodworm. you told me that otherwise I probably wouldn't have known. Thanks

Dont use flake food, its too easy for the fish to flip after being fed. A good pellet food is all you need and check out the feeding forum for other ideas.

I'll only be using the flakes for a couple of days until I can get some sinking pellets from my local pet shop. I'm not too keen on using food that floats on the surface anyway because I read somewhere that this increases the chance of swimbladder problems and I think that's what happened to one of my other fish before I had to put him out of his misery

I soak my flake food for 10 min. before feeding.
They drift down to the bottom, absolutely nothing is left at the surface of the water.
Be sure to soak food before feeding, especialy pellets, because they are dried.
Its amazing, after 10 minuets how big and fat my floating pellets get.
You do NOT want that expanding in your fishes tummy and messing with their swim bladders.
I had feed these floating pellets below the surface with my fingers.
I also feed sinking pellets, but you have to be kind of carefull to dump those in a place with less gravle, or none, thats probably best, so none is missed.
In sort, I soak ALL my food for 10 minuets.
As for how much to feed, I'm still playing with that.

Thanks for the advice. I always soak the floating pellets too and they get HUGE. I only usually soak them for 5 minutes though. I'll soak them for 10 minutes from now on since that's what you advise. They must get even bigger. I usually break the pellets in half so if they haven't fully expanded, it's not going to be too much of an issue like if they ate a whole one.

I didn't know you could soak the flakes either. I just assumed they would break up and leave a mess in the tank but I'll definitely do it from now on. I had no idea they would sink like pellets. Every day is a learning curve for me. There's so much to know to be a good fishkeeper! My little guys are worth the extra effort though because I love them to bits.

I now feed them whatever they can eat in 5 minutes. I don't go over that in case they get constipated. If there's food left over after the 5 mins, I suck it up with the gravel vac and just tip the water back in after I've filtered it.

Thanks for the advice. Oh, and as for the fish missing food on the bottom of the tank - no chance. My guys root around even in the deepest gravel and find everything. I see them taking a massive poop when I fed them 4 or 5 hours before hand, so they must be finding loads

Hi,
I soak the flake food for 2 mins also. But my schedule for feeding time is 2 mins. I gave all the food they can eat within 2 mins. In this way, if I see small amount of food left after 2 mins, I don't need to take it out. Good luck!!!

Thanks for the input. I appreciate every bit of info I can get. I used to think I was pretty clued up about fishkeeping until a little while ago and now I'm learning new stuff every day! I just hope I can keep up with it all

Well, I've been soaking the pellets/flakes and using the bloodworm as a treat/ So far so good. I even tried the guys on peas the other night but they didn't seem too keen. Maybe it's because they weren't sure what they were or they were just reluctant to try them, but they got eaten anyway. I fed 4 peas, broken into halves and the little guy only had one piece. He seemed to sort of screwed up his face like a five year old being force fed veggies. They big guy finished off the rest but it took him quite a long time.

Does it take longer for them to chew/digest the peas than it does to eat the flakes and pellets? Maybe they weren't soft enough.