What would cause goldfish to move the gravel in their tank? When I clean the tank I level out the gravel and within a few days the fish have managed to somehow move or pile the gravel on the opposite end of their tank. One end of the tank is almost down to the bare glass, and the opposite end is piled up like a ski slope. I have never actually seen them doing this.

it's what goldfish do at night mine were always at it. weird !

Goldfish belong to the family of carp. Carp are a fish that feed on the bottom of their environment. In "the wild" this means rooting through mud bottom of a pond, or moving smaller stones and such along the edges of the pond, slow stream. IN the fall, the fish will feed on the steady rain of insects that fall on surfaces of the water, but most of the rest of the time, feeding is done almost exclusively on the bottom.

Our goldfish have this same instinct - which is why they feed most often on the bottom of the tank. They will eat the food that is easy to find as it sits on the top of the stones right after you feed them. But, after the "easy" stuff is gone, they still do what goldfish do - continue to look for food.

A goldfish will suck up mouthfuls of the substrate of a tank and move it aside, sifting through it looking for food. This is why a mud or sand bottom will always be a bit hazy and cloudy - for the fish will never let it alone. We use stone in our tanks to stop this haziness. But that does not stop the fish from sorting through the stones, too.

It is a very common problem for goldfish to pick up stones that fit into their mouths, but cannot, easily, come back out. A stone stuck in the mouth of a fish is a very bad thing. To avoid this, you can go to very small stones (messy and the fish can accidentally eat them) or to larger stones (river stones of at least 2 inches in diameter) to prevent the fish from getting them in their mouths.

Having the larger river stones does not mean that your fish will not continue to play tank hockey with them. IT is a natural instinct. It can be very noisy when done at night - so be grateful you have never seen or heard them do it!!!!

For a quieter tank - I have gone bare bottom!

i have changed my smaller substrate for larger river pebbles. now half my tank is covered in pebbles and the other half is bare bottom with a mopani log. my biggest fish sam can still move those pebbles somehow and it is quite noisey some nights. for a while there i thought he was secretly learning the Castanets

My fish like to move their gravel around and have piles in the corners and at one end of the tank. i no longer flatten the gravel after water changes, i just let them rearrange their house. lol. They also like to move their plants around and eat the real ones!!

Yeah, that's what mine do too! I have my Oranda tank in my bedroom (no choice due to space) and I've grown used to the noise from the air feature and the filtration, but I've been actually woken from sleep before now by the sound of my Oranda's moving the river stones around the tank - it can get quite loud! Still, I like the appearance of them very much so I wouldn't go for a completely bare-bottomed tank. The fish obviously love rooting around the stones too, the advantage being they don't trap anywhere near the amount of debris as gravel does, virtually none with the filtration I've got going

My fish have finally stopped rearranging the rocks at night. I would sometimes wake up to find all the rocks moved, with a empty circle they cleared in the center. Now, BLackie just flips the rocks over with his mouth/head in his continuous search for food!

My Oranda Larry Loves to pick up the river stones and spit them back out. He does it regularily its actually a comforting tick, tick. I like the reassuring noise it's like a cat purring. But his tank mate, Fussy the fantail, has no interest at all in the stones. She is too busy trying to run the world.

Before I went to river rocks, I had standard gravel and a quite large conch shell. No matter where I put the shell (which was bigger than all 4 of my fish at the time) it was always moved a few inches away by the next day. Did they organize and all push the shell at once?

They have secret lives, don't they?

Yes Yes - so does Punch - in fact - the funny thing is - when I was dumb enough to follow the pet stoire owner literally, at the beginning - I was feeding frozen peas with the skin- Punch would gather them from every part of the tank and put them in a little pile - Literally like stacking canon balls - very neat - (he is a neat freak and assists when I am cleaning the tank LOL)when they thawed- he would munch on them- de-skinning on his own of course - go figure!!!

Punch and Eric