my black moor is a picky little eater

[cspaccio]

Hi!

I have three fantail goldfish in a 20 gallon long tank. They all live merrily together, but I feel as if my black moor isn't eating properly. The other two goldfish are a tad bigger than him, but all in all they are about an inch long a peice (minus the tails). The other two are orandas and they eat like there's no tomorro! However, when i drop the food in, the black moor seems like he can't see it or something. He comes to the top and tries to eat, but he seems to keep missing the flakes as soon as he passes by. All the water parameters are normal. He's been doing this for a while now, but it is just making me nervous. How can I get him the proper nutrients without overfeeding the other 2 pigs? Any suggestions?

 

[Jaxom_Ruatha]

Just so you know fancy goldfish require 10 gallons each minimum, although they may be fine now and for a bit longer, they grow fast and are some of the messiest fish out there producing lots of waste. I believe this problem is quite common with celestial shaped goldfish such as they black moores. Since they do have handicapped eyesight and oftenly go blind it would be best if you designated an area where he could learn to come to at feeding time to eat and perhaps place a little dish on the bottom of your tank for him and drop the food so that it lands on the dish, like some people use tubes to drop it down on the dish. If this explanation confuses you you could go ask at http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/forum/index.php which is a site dedicated to info. on goldfish, I hope you find the information you were looking for.

 

[Punkymom]

I have 4 goldfish. One of which is a little Black Moore. Surprise, surprise, he's the picky eater out of my group. When I feed, I don't feed on the surface of the water. I have several reasons for this, first is, it's not good for goldfish to gulp air. When they eat from the surface, they tend to do this. The second reason is purely my preference to have my fish eat from my hand. So when I feed them, I get a few flakes in my fingers and put my whole hand in the water and gently shake the flakes throughout the water. This way, they get the food as it floats down and hits the gravel. They also don't take in air this way. My Black Moore tends to eat better this way. HTH

 

[jsoong]

Black moors (& all "fancy eyed" goldies) have terrible eyesight. Although they will find food by smell, they often miss what's in front of their noses!

What I do is to put a small amount of food in one spot <I use the same spot so the fishies will know>. When everyone <except the moor, who is slower & doesn't school too well with the others, presumably due to poor sight> is diving in for the food, I put some food near the moor. While the others are busily chasing the initial food dump, the moor can have a bit of time to find his portion.

The second way is for peas & other vegetable matter. I put in an excess of food, so everyone will have a chance to find some. Since peas & the like is not likely to foul the water, I put in enough to last a few hours. For big chunky food like zuchini, I just put in a big piece in & fish it out the next day.