Parenting 

Advertisement

Keep your goldfish healthy - cook him a meal!

If your goldfish could speak, what type of food do you think he would ask for as you sprinkle yet another helping of fish flakes into his tank?

Goldfish are omnivores which means they are designed to eat a wide variety of foods, both animal and vegetable. Like us, they thrive on a healthy, well-balanced range of foods. Fish flakes alone can't provide all the variety your fish would like.

So, the next time you visit your local aquarist, why not buy some live food such as brine shrimp or daphnia? Brine shrimps are a great source of protein; daphnia are ideal for helping your goldfish avoid constipation, which is more of a problem for goldfish than you might think.

Replacing one or two meals of fish flakes with live food each week, will improve your fish's digestion, and make feeding times more interesting for your fish - and for you. Before adding live food, switch off the tank filter to prevent the food being filtered before your fish can eat it. Remember to switch the filter on again once your fish have finished feeding.

Goldfish love salad
And the scope for adding variety doesn't end there. Did you know that goldfish enjoy nibbling fresh spinach and lettuce leaves? Any type of lettuce will do, although the Romaine variety is a favourite.

Rinse a leaf in clean water, then cut off small pieces and feed them to your goldfish. Alternatively, you can buy a lettuce leaf holder from your aquarist; it will hold a whole lettuce leaf, and allow your fish to bite pieces off to eat.

The leaves provide your goldfish with important vitamins and minerals they need. They also contain carotenoids - red and yellow plant pigments - which means you could even see improvements in the colouring of your goldfish!

Give them the 'squashed pea' treatment
The next time peas are on the menu for your family, save a few cooked peas for your goldfish. All you need to do is squash each pea slightly and remove the outer skin - the skin is too hard for your fish to digest - and then add one or two peas to your fish tank.

Scientists aren't sure exactly why, but a squashed cooked pea can often help a goldfish that is suffering with swim-bladder disease. The swim-bladder helps a goldfish maintain balance and lets it rise and sink. Swim-bladder disease is often caused by the fish's stomach - which lies next to the swim-bladder - becoming distended and pressing against the swim-bladder.

The squashed pea remedy appears to help by moving food and trapped air out of the fish's stomach, which releases pressure on the swim-bladder.

Delicious     Digg     reddit     Facebook     StumbleUpon

  Get the latest iVillage news on your desktop    Sign up for more iVillage RSS feeds

© iVillage Limited 2000-2008. All rights reserved. | © iVillage inc. 1995-2008. All rights reserved.
iVillage Ltd is a UK company registered in England & Wales (3837269) at 80-110 New Oxford Street, London WC1 1HB