Goldfish cichlid food

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Food

Food is one of the factors that are overlooked greatly by several enthusiasts. Never forget the saying, “you are what you eat”. Goldfish obviously need proper nutrition if they must be kept for a long time. I have noticed petstores in general sell cheap fishfoods which do not have the proper ingredients and nutritional value without influencing the body functions of the fish adversely. A lot of people buy them without bothering to ask whether that particular product is even suitable for tropical fish or coldwater fish. To them, as long as it fits their budget, it is okay but what if that particular brand becomes the culprit of digestive upsets and buoyancy problems suffered by the fish as a result of ignorance?

Floating Foods in Correlation to Buoyancy Issues
I had been questioning for some time what exactly causes buoyancy problems. This had been a mystery to me because I found myself hounded by this question every time someone asks me how his fish got buoyancy problems. Many people alleged floating foods are the main cause. I chose to believe this in spite of myself feeding my own fancy goldfish floating pellets. After conducting several researches, I found that some goldfish tend to become “floaty” when they are fed with pellets regardless of whether it is floating or sinking although some alleged their fish gets “floaty” with floating pellets and this was remedied only by using sinking pellets or gel foods.

Flakes
In many cases, flake foods have been avoided by goldfish enthusiasts for two main reasons: a. floating, and b. vitamins cannot be retained in them. Both points are valid.

When flakes float, the fish tends to ingest air in the process thus when it becomes trapped in the GI tract, it can cause buoyancy issues to the fish in question. Flakes also contain air itself and can expand quickly. As quickly as the fish would eat, the flakes expand themselves inside the digestive system of the fish thus making the fish prone to bloat or constipation.

Unlike pellets, flakes cannot retain the vitamins that they have been injected with due to high surface area and exposure to air and light which destroy the vitamins in the process. Aside from that, vitamins are water soluble and can easily be leached out of the water. As vitamins are best obtained by ingestion, the fish may be unable to utilize all the needed vitamins if they leach out of the food.

Starchy Foods
Although this theory in the first paragraph for floating foods does have a valid point, I believe we should all look into the ingredients used. Considering some fish get unusually “floaty” with either floating or sinking pellets, it could be the ingredients that are easily the culprit yet overlooked.

So what makes the ingredients of the food the possible culprit? Several food analysts who studied the ingredients and guaranteed analysis of particular brands suggested that the starch-based foods are the culprit. A lot of food products contain starch. It is added in the food to weigh in the protein content needed by the young fish. While it does weigh in to the protein content, it contains very little nutritional value thus making it worthless for use despite the claims that it helps with fish growth due to the alleged high protein content. Even though goldfish do not have stomach and digestive enzymes needed to digest the food well, they have bacteria in their digestive system that help digest the foods and at the same time, producing gas as they digest the starch particularly soybean meal and yeast which when trapped, will cause the fish to lose its buoyancy partially or completely.

Unfortunately almost all food products contain starch or grain-based ingredients such as soybean meal, yeast, wheat flour, wheaten gluten meal, brewer’s dried yeast, soy protein concentrate, rolled oats, etc. The only way to choose your food products is make sure the wheat ingredients do not make up most of the top ingredients (preferably the first five) as the arrangement of the ingredients indicate chronological order of the ingredient portions taking up the food most to the least. If possible, stick to brands where fish meal and krill meal take up the top places followed by a few grain-based ingredients (although I would still minimize the amount of starch involved as much as possible).

Sugary Foods
Sugary foods are not necessarily bad. Most plant matter contains carbohydrates in the complex form. In fact, goldfish do convert carbohydrates into fat deposits and many of the heavier bodied varieties would not develop properly without the appropriate amount of complex carbs in their diets.

The problem comes with simple carbs. Simple carbs are smaller molecules, digest easily and therefore are easily converted to fats. Too much fats causes health problems in fish, reptiles, dogs, cats, just like in people. Heart disease, obesity, fatty deposits on the liver and other organs, hypertension, are all potential dangers of over ingesting simple
carbohydrates. So, while it is important for goldfish to have carbs in their diet, it is also important that they receive them from a plant matter source that is high in fiber to balance over all health.

Most vegetables, in their raw state, contain complex carbohydrates only. It is not until after they are cooked that the sugars convert.

Frozen Foods
As far as frozen foods are concerned, there is also a danger of a Vitamin B and thiamine deficiency, as freezing depletes those levels. That is why it is also important to use a multivitamin such as Centrum in prepared diets.
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awesome explaination.... to follow up, are there ANY brands out there that are worthy to trust as food? particularly goldfish flakes?
If not Lupin, any chance on hooking us up with some EASY home made meals with "centrum"; or really any other methods to replace flakes for healthy meals? (i hope that made sense).

Mind you, I'm not really a fan of pills in the first place as many pills use for human consumption since manufacturers use not so great methods to form the pills; and have it adhere into pill forms. Vitamin supplements and even cheap brands of acetaminophen (tylenol) are such examples.
 
Hikari Lionhead and Saki Hikari. No flakes for fancy goldfish but singletails can take them well since their body shape is normal therefore no mashed up internal organs.

Gel foods are always best since you can incorporate fresh foods with them and even multivitamins. Don't combine commercial pellets with gel foods especially as you already added multivitamins as you risk vitamin overdose to your fish.

Centrum is fine. I'll find the measurement for iron content later as I'm running out of time and post it here.
 
For those who care and want to make their own food... Seems like you can make just about anything for any kinda fish really... in terms of home-made foods...

Ingredients:
3 jars green veggies baby food- recommended 1 pea and 2 green bean
2 envelopes of plain unflavored gelatin
1/2 adult multivitamin- no iron
1/2 acidophilus tab
1 1/2 oz salmon- drained if from can

Directions:
Dissolve gelatin in 1/2 cup hot, boiled water. Mix baby food, salmon and crushed multivitamin and acidophilus in a small bowl. Pour gelatin/water mix into the bowl and stir well. Pour into a flat container so it's about 1/4" thick. Put in fridge to set. Once food has set, cut into square pieces. Keep out enough food for one week, and freeze the rest in high quality freezer bags.
 
can goldfish feed on cichlid food? I have Hikari gold, NLS pellets and spirulina.
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The short & sweet answer is - YES.

I've raised out numerous fancy strains of goldfish on NLS pellets.
 
Yes they can. They will eat anything that is yummy :D
 
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