by Enjru » Sat Nov 01, 2014 3:14 pm
Yup, in the warmer weather, goldfish definitely like to be fed more than once a day, maybe even 4 times a day (but less in quantity each time). They seem to be especially hungry in the morning and in the late afternoon, before sunset. But, in winter, once is enough as their digestion slows down with the colder water temperature.
Instead of live daphnia, I feed them live brine shrimp. There is much less risk of introducing disease via brine shrimp, because brine shrimp live in a salty water environment, while goldfish live in a freshwater environment.
Other live foods include bloodworms, which you may find growing inside your filtration medium. Feeding live bloodworms bought from an aquarium shop is somewhat risky because of the likelihood of bringing in diseases, but this is much more of an issue for fish susceptible to parasitic infections (especially Discus), rather than goldfish.
Of course, one can always feed frozen brine shrimp and frozen bloodworms as well. If choosing frozen bloodworms, get a reputable brand like Hikari which I think irradiates their frozen bloodworms to ensure they are not carrying any live pathogens which may be introduced into your ponds.
Hikari also makes a good variety of dried pelleted goldfish foods. You can vary them with the seasons, feeding "high-growth" pellets (with a higher protein content) in the warmer months, while feeding more easily digestible wheatgerm pellets during the winter months. Pellets which contain spirulina will assist in bringing out the red/orange coloration.
Do not forget you can feed them water plants, including duckweed and water hyacinths (but please be aware that both of these are weeds, which would have you fined, if someone from your council catches you growing it). You can even try to feed them some salad vegetables such as watercress, or even cooking some frozen peas and frozen carrots (finely chopped), and even some cooked sweet potato (finely chopped) or boiled spinach for them to eat.
As an occasional treat (and only in the warmer months), you can feed some high protein seafood treats such as reconstituted (ie, soaked) dried shrimp, reconstituted (ie, soaked) dried shrimp eggs (which you can buy at the specialist Chinese grocers) and even chopped up fresh prawns (with the spiney bits of the shell removed), chopped up mussel meat, chopped up scallop meat, chopped up oyster meat and even rinsed salmon caviar (to get rid of the excess salt) from the fishmarket.
A more controversial treat would be beef heart, and again this should be given only in the warm weather. Be aware that some fishkeepers really disagree quite strongly with this option, because there has been found to be a protein in beef heart that goldfish cannot digest, but it has been my experience that the high protein in beef heart really helps the fancy head growths of certain goldfish varieties like the oranda, the lionhead and the ranchu, to properly develop.
As for amount, just feed what the goldfish will eat within 10 minutes.
Remember that if you are feeding any of these high protein food suggestions, that you will be adding to the nitrogenous load that your filter will have to handle, so do not leave any uneaten bits lying around the bottom of the pond to rot, but please suck out any uneaten remnants after, say, half an hour or so. You will need to do more frequent water changes to keep the nitrate levels low (unless you have gone to the trouble and expense of installing a protein skimmer/foam fractionator).
Hope all this info has not been too much but has been somewhat helpful!