Best Starter Food for Baby Orandas

[FredTheGoldfish 174]

I've been looking around at the large variety of goldfish food at PetSmart and online. I'd like to start off my new baby orandas (when I get them) with the best possible food for an overall healthy diet.

Also, I've seen videos of pet owners hand-feeding their goldfish. Is that safe for the fish? If so, what is the best fish food to hand-feed orandas?

[THUNDER 80]

There are many options. Best are pellets from brands Omega One, Hikari, Goldfish Connection, etc. Yes, its safe to hand feed them. And you also have wide variety of homemade gel food plus an instant option with Repashy.

[tithra 4,917]

New life spectrum and omega one foods are both good and easy to come by locally. Hikari foods are also a good choice, you may be able to find these locally - the saki Hikari purple bag is a popular one and the pellets are nice and small for little mouths

Repashy soilent green and progold are of course other favorites around here. You might be able to find repashy at an LFS (mine carries it), but progold would need to be ordered online from goldfishconnection.com

Overall, you want to look for a sinking pellet with good ingredients - look for the words "whole____" within the first few ingredients.

Frozen blood worms are also a good treat that will promote growth, along with fresh veggies (having a veggie/seaweed clip is good for this)

Hand feeding is fine, but you will want to make sure your hands are clean and soap free before putting them in the tank to feed the fish. I have used hand feeding to make sure that slower fish get their fair share of food. I handfeed pellets and gel food. You could in theory hand feed any type of food as long as you can hold it between your fingers

[GoldenSpoiledRotten 6,786]

Generally you're going to want to feed like any other young goldfish.

Personal experience: Clementine was a baby when I got her and I started her off with ProGold. After awhile I added some Bloodworms to her diet to develop her wen.

Hand-feeding is really beneficial for goldfish for socialization reasons. Mine get their veggies hand-fed generally, sometimes their normal food. This allows the hand to be associated with something other than fear.

Edited January 26, 2013 by ChelseaM

[FredTheGoldfish 174]

Thanks for the suggestions, all!

Can anyone tell me what that Spam-like food is that you have to cut up into cubes? Is that the Repashy soilent green?

[GoldenSpoiledRotten 6,786]

Yes, it is.

I have never heard of it being called spam-like before!

[tithra 4,917]

lol. yep it is

Our site sponsor has good pricing on it http://tastyworms.com/repashy-soilent-green-aufwuchs-gel-fish-food.html

[FredTheGoldfish 174]

Generally you're going to want to feed like any other young goldfish. Personal experience: Clementine was a baby when I got her and I started her off with ProGold. After awhile I added some Bloodworms to her diet to develop her wen. Hand-feeding is really beneficial for goldfish for socialization reasons. Mine get their veggies hand-fed generally, sometimes their normal food. This allows the hand to be associated with something other than fear.

When is a good time to start feeding Bloodworms? And can you use heated-up frozen veggies (carrots, peas, etc.) or are there special veggies just for fish?

[tithra 4,917]

You can feed bloodworms right away Breeders often feed them as soon as the fry are large enough to fit them in their mouth (and before that some will chop them up so they are smaller)

My personal favorite veggies to feed are kale, romaine, spinach, cucumber, zucchini, and green beans. You can feed most veggies, but you want to think about nutritional and sugar content of them (avoid high sugar fruits and veggies, avoid foods like corn that don't really have a lot of nutrition value). Veggies will need to be softened by boiling/microwaving them before feeding.

[GoldenSpoiledRotten 6,786]

To add to Tithra's post: Make sure if you buy those bags of frozen veggies that the only ingredient in them is the veggies, absolutely no salt or anything else.

[FredTheGoldfish 174]

You can feed bloodworms right away Breeders often feed them as soon as the fry are large enough to fit them in their mouth (and before that some will chop them up so they are smaller)

My personal favorite veggies to feed are kale, romaine, spinach, cucumber, zucchini, and green beans. You can feed most veggies, but you want to think about nutritional and sugar content of them (avoid high sugar fruits and veggies, avoid foods like corn that don't really have a lot of nutrition value). Veggies will need to be softened by boiling/microwaving them before feeding.

Great information, thanks!

[FredTheGoldfish 174]

To add to Tithra's post: Make sure if you buy those bags of frozen veggies that the only ingredient in them is the veggies, absolutely no salt or anything else.

No salt. Got it. That means no dinner leftovers from the kids' plates.

[Orandatchi 210]

The food I'm using for some of my baby orandas is Hikari Oranda Gold. c: It's got a pretty good effect on my teles, so it should work for orandas! The best brands I have seen people use on Koko's is Saki Hikari, Repashy Soilent Green, and Pro-Gold.

[ahardeay 826]

I like the hikari purple bag, you can use a cleaned out pepper grinder if you need to break up the small pellets even more. Pro-gold at goldfish connection is good too, you might want to order their Medi-gold and Metro-Med to have on hand just incase any illness pops up, it is better to have it on hand instead of waiting for it to ship when your fish is ill. I have not tried it but the repashy gel food is popular here and I like Mazuri gel food too. You can give frozen bloodworms too they love those!

[tithra 4,917]

The food I'm using for some of my baby orandas is Hikari Oranda Gold. c: It's got a pretty good effect on my teles, so it should work for orandas! The best brands I have seen people use on Koko's is Saki Hikari, Repashy Soilent Green, and Pro-Gold.

The one thing that I don't like about their oranda formula is that it is a floating pellet. The lionhead type is a better choice because it is a sinking one The Saki is also a sinking one.

[THUNDER 80]

All those are great options. If you come up with something new, let us know.

[Daniel 5,668]

I like the hikari purple bag, you can use a cleaned out pepper grinder if you need to break up the small pellets even more.

I just wanted to say this idea is absolutely ingenious; I never would of thought of using a pepper mill like that.