how to tell if underfeeding goldfish?

[Y. Kim]

I have a shubunkin, a common goldfish, and two fantails in a 29 G tank.
The fantails are much smaller than the single tails. I feed them twice a
day, flake food from Tetra in the morning, pellets in the evening. I
also toss in a spirulina disc at night. I'm wondering if the fantails
are not getting enough food. My fantails are shaped differently from the
fantails I see at the pet stores - my fantails are a bit more elongated
and not quite as rotund in shape. They are still quite fat if one gets a
view from the back, though. Poop looks normal. Are they being underfed?

Incidentally, the common goldfish, which is the largest, is a bit of a
food bully but it and the shubunkin usually bully each other leaving the
fantails alone to chase after food scraps. When I worry that the
smallest fantail has not been getting enough food I put some food
pellets in a small glass saltshaker without the lid, the mouth of which
is only large enough for the fantail.

y-m

[[email protected]]

tricky, you may get one of the other fish stuck in there. Ingrid

"Y. Kim" > wrote:
. When I worry that the
>smallest fantail has not been getting enough food I put some food
>pellets in a small glass saltshaker without the lid, the mouth of which
>is only large enough for the fantail.
>
>y-m



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[Gunther]

In article .net>, no-
says...
> I think this is a good question. Its unfortunate none of the experts of
> answered you. Personally I am very interested in hearing what symptoms
> indicate under feeding.
>
> After reading and researching I have yet to find two people who agreed on
> how much to feed a goldfish. Some people say feed the fish everything they
> can eat in 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and even10 minutes. Some people
> say feed them two mouthfulls three times a day or three mouthfulls twice a
> day. How much constitutes a moutful for a fish is anyone's guess. One web
> site even said keep feeding the fish until they snap at their food but spit
> it out (tried that once and ended up with swimblatter problems).
>
> Everyone preaches the evil of overfeeding. With so much manic fear
> associated with overfeeding I can see someone go the other direction and not
> feed their fish enough. On the other hand, in tanks with several fish a
> pecking order will develop. The "alpha fish" will get most of the food, the
> rest of the fish will get some too but there may be one fish who gets almost
> nothing.
>
> So anyone got the guts to answer the question? How can you tell if you are
> underfeeding a goldfish?


The only really definitive answer is "If it starves to death,
you underfed it." I'm not trying to be flip -- there's no
real answer to the question as posed, that I am aware of.

I've wanted to know myself, since long-term underfeeding
could/should cause some problems, but I suspect starvation
isn't one of them. More likely the fish, being malnourished,
would have a compromised immune system and succumb to some
other malady first.
So does that mean that some chronically ill goldfish may in fact
be underfed, hence malnourished? Maybe.

A couple of people whose advice I trust around here
(BErnie, Tom LaBron or ??) said that the optimal feeding
regimen was 2% of the fish's weight in high quality food,
spread evenly over the daylight hours. That's "optimal"
in the sense of encouraging the most/fastest growth without
wasting food. Unless you're willing to carefully weigh
your fish every week or so, and weigh each portion of
food, you'll have to do what most of us do: guess.

But it's not that hard, is it? You know what overfeeding
leads to -- too much poop, foul water, maybe dead fish.
So you avoid that problem by feeding less than they want
you to, but more than you probably have to.

I firmly believe there's a kernel of sense in the above.
If I determine what it is, I'll be sure to let you know.

Gunther