Two Tips I Use

[PHYLAL]

Two ideas that I use that I have not seen in print anywhere:

? When we go on vacation I fill old film canisters (I know? I know? ?What are film canisters??), or something equivalent, with enough fish food (less than I normally feed them) for them to get by. Who ever is feeding the fish simply puts in one container each day and there are no problems with the fish being over fed or the filter being overwhelmed with excess fish food.

? I do not remove my fry from my pond. After they are large enough to realize that they are no longer ?fish food?, and begin to swim around the pond, I feed them. I know you can buy food small enough for them to eat, but I use this method. We had an old electric coffee grinder lying around and I use it to grind the same pellets I use to feed the adults. I store the ground pellets in an old spice jar that has a perforated cap under the lid. I feed floating pellets to the adults (all comets, and shubunkins), and while they are feeding from the surface, the fry can eat off the bottom (the ground up pellets mostly sink). After the adults are finished they spend the next half hour cleaning up the leftover debris off the bottom (Do goldfish ever stop eating?).

[drkslvr]

An old coffee grinder. That's a nice idea. When I bought my goldfish they were tiny. Too tiny to eat the goldfish food that I was sold with the fish! I crushed their food in the lid of the food container with the back of a spoon, but it was a little ridiculous. I'm sure a friend or family member had an old unwanted coffee grinder I could have taken...