Is It Ok to Feed Goldfish Once a Day? (Answered)

We’re busy! You may be spending most of your time at school or at work and may find time to feed your goldfish either in the morning or at night.

But, is it ok to feed goldfish once a day?

It is totally fine to feed your adult goldfish once a day. But you’ll need to feed baby goldfish 2 to 3 times per day. This is because the baby goldfish are at the growth stage of their lives whereas adult goldfish are already grown up and they need food just to carry out their daily activities.

Now you know the answer. But there’s more you need to know about feeding your goldfish to take good care of it like- what and how much food you should feed to your goldfish. This is important because overfeeding is not only harmful but deadly to your fish.

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Table of Contents

Is it ok to feed baby goldfish once a day?

You’ll need to feed 2 to 3 times per day to the baby goldfish (the goldfish less than one-year-old). And each time you should feed the amount of food your goldfish can consume within two minutes.

You’ll need to feed more often to your baby goldfish than your adult goldfish because the baby goldfish are in the growth stage in their life. So they need more food to support their growth whereas adult goldfish need food just to carry out their daily activities.

What is the best time of the day to feed your goldfish?

It doesn’t really matter at what time of the day you should feed your goldfish. What matters though is consistency.

You’ll need to feed your goldfish at the same time every day. So you should look at your daily schedule and see where you could find time to feed your goldfish every day.

Now feeding goldfish is not just a five-minute thing!

Feeding time is the time when you could interact with your fish. And this is the time the fish are very active so it’s the best time to spot any early signs of health problems in your goldfish.

If you noticed a particular goldfish is not eating or is not active then it could be an early sign of a disease.

Besides, goldfish are very prone to swim bladder disorder, especially fancy goldfish.

To avoid the disease you’ll need to prepare the food (more on this later) before feeding your goldfish. So the preparation is going to take some time.

So, overall, you should set aside a good 20 to 25 minutes to feed your goldfish.

How much food should I feed my goldfish in a meal?

There are two good general good rules of thumb when it comes to the amount of food you should feed to your goldfish.

Feed the amount of food equals to the eyes of your goldfish
Feed the amount of food the goldfish can consume within 2 minutes

Now it might seem like you’re not feeding a lot of food to your goldfish. And that’s the point, as I mentioned earlier, overfeeding goldfish can be deadly to your goldfish. So it is better to feed less food than overfeeding!

If you’re keeping goldfish in a pond and if the fish pond contains a lot of algae and vegetation then you’ll need to feed your goldfish as less as once a month during winter months!

What you can feed to your goldfish?

You can feed a variety of foods to your goldfish. In fact, you should feed a variety of foods to your goldfish.

Besides, you’ll need to prepare the food before feeding your goldfish.

Preparation of the food is important because goldfish are prone to swim bladder disorder and constipation. And preparing the food before feeding can help to avoid these problems.

Pellets

There are pellet fish foods available like Saki-Hikari Fancy Goldfish (link to Amazon) that is specifically made for goldfish.

This fish food contains all the essential nutrients that are necessary for goldfish.

While choosing pellets for goldfish make sure to choose sinking pellets. This is important because if the pellets are not sinking in the tank then while eating the floating pellets the goldfish will also gulp air. This can cause swim bladder disorder in goldfish.

A good way to make sure the pellets will sink in the water once you put it in your fish tank is to soak the pellets in a small cup with the water from your tank for a couple of minutes and then add it in your tank.

Besides, you should also make sure the pellet food contains a minimum filler ingredients. This is important because the filler ingredients can cause constipation in goldfish. Also, it can make the water dirty.

Now all the fish food will contain some filler ingredients in it. This is because the filler ingredients work as a binding agent in the fish food recipe.

Generally, the ingredients are listed in descending order according to their volume in the fish food. So just make sure that the first few ingredients are wholesome food like Fish meal, Spirulina, Krill Meal, Squid Meal, Seaweed Meal, Larvae Meal, etc.

Flakes

You can also feed flakes to your goldfish. There are flake foods available in the market like Aqueon Goldfish Flakes (link to Amazon) that are specially made for goldfish. So they contain the nutrients that a goldfish needs the most.

Now the problem with feeding flake food to the goldfish is that if you just put the flake food in your tank then the flakes will float on the surface of the water in your tank.

Now as mentioned earlier, this can cause swim bladder disorder as goldfish can gulp some air while eating the flakes.

There are a couple of ways to make the flakes sink in your goldfish tank.

You can soak the flakes in a small cup with the water from your fish tank for a few seconds and then add the flakes directly in your tank. This will make the flakes sink in your fish tank.
If you’re using a HOB filter then putting the flakes right where the purified water falls from the filter will make the flakes sink in the tank.

Gel food

You can also feed gel food to your goldfish. The best thing about gel food that is specially made for goldfish like Repashy Super Gold (link to Amazon) is that these foods contain a lot of wholesome ingredients.

Besides, as you’ll need to mix the food in water to form a gel before feeding to your goldfish the fish food already contains water which helps with digestion.

Veggies

Veggies should form a big part of your goldfish diet. This is because goldfish are not very good at digesting food. Especially the fancy varieties of goldfish have oval-shaped bodies unlike common goldfish so they struggle a lot with digestion.

You can feed a variety of veggies to your goldfish.

You can feed green leafy veggies like spinach, kale, lettuce, etc to your goldfish.

You can also feed fruits such as grapes, orange, apple banana, etc.

Besides, you can also feed duckweed which is a hardy aquatic plant.

The most important thing you’ll need to keep in mind while feeding these foods, especially the vegetables and fruits is that you’ll need to prepare them before feeding your goldfish.

The preparation could be as simple as just boiling the veggies before feeding them to your goldfish.

Actually, I’ve written a detailed article covering all the fruits and vegetables you can feed to your goldfish and how to prepare and feed them. You can check out the article here.

Conclusion

Overall, you can feed your adult goldfish once a day. However, you’ll need to feed baby goldfish 2 to 3 times per day. Each time you should feed the amount of food your goldfish can consume within 2 minutes.

Besides, for the proper growth and development of the fish, you should feed a variety of food to your goldfish. Also, make sure to follow the food preparation tips I’ve mentioned in this article to avoid swim bladder disorder in your goldfish.