Scavenging fantail?

[baypo_km 1]

My pretty little fantail runs around the bottom of the tank sucking rocks into her mough and spitting them back out. I know I'm feeding her enough, though. She is acting like a little scavenging bottom feeder. Is this normal, has anyone else seen this before?

[tithra 4,917]

This is totally normal behavior Goldies are grazers by nature so they instinctively search the floor for food throughout the day just hoping to find something.

[Helen 8,511]

it's called foraging.. and as long as she's happy, blows you kisses, is entertained by your pure existence, she's happy to be doing what you describe

pics by any chance?

[baypo_km 1]

Here she is, her name is Bubbles.

[Helen 8,511]

oh! what a pretty ryukin

as she does like to investigate the gravel so much, just be sure to thorougly clean it.. as well as give the ornament a scrub on the under side from time to time like every second watechange

[baypo_km 1]

I have been cleaning everything in there quite frequently. She's just starting spawning for the first time but since there's no male to fertilise I have to take the plant and ornament out and scrub all the eggs off. She doesn't seem to have any interest in eating the eggs like I thought she would.

[fantailfan1 26,742]

She is adorable!!

[Evening 102]

My goldfish do the same. Sometimes I hide stuff in the gravel for them.

[King Poseidon 73]

Wild carassius are "gravel suckers", so domestic forms are too.

In one of my tanks, i have two common goldfish that are gravel sucking addict...so much they play all day long with it (one goldiy takes a big load of gravel in its mouth then split in the face of his tankmate, this one being totally upset takes its revenge immediately the same way). Consequently, the gravel is perfectly clean all the time. The only issue i've encountered is gravel stuck in nostrils: that tends to produce a slime oversecretion within the nostril.

To remove it, i use a bulb syringe....and they seem to find this very fun.

[cmclien 655]

I have a fantail too and both my GF spend all day either poking through the marbles on the bottom (I recently went "mostly" bare bottom) or at the top eating at the water, looking for floating food like flakes, when they don't find it back to the bottom they go. And this goes on all day long! I do drop pellets into corners of the tank when they're busy doing other things but they find it so fast. I can hear them moving the marbles around as they go, it sounds like crinkling paper.