10 Best Goldfish Foods You Need to Try

Goldfish have been bred for hundreds of years to have special features like elegant double tails and egg-shaped bodies. This compact body can cause constipation or digestive problems. Goldfish owners spend a lot of energy and time finding the best food for their water piggies. These are the top 10 foods that we have cultivated over decades to provide goldfish with a variety of nutrients and color-enhancing substances.

Note: Some people believe goldfish shouldn’t be fed floating food. They could swallow air from the water surface and develop intestinal problems. In our years of experience, we regularly feed floating foods and have not seen any health issues with our fish. In fact, floating fish food is sometimes preferred because it remains at the surface for fish to find and doesn’t get stuck in the substrate or behind aquarium decorations.

1. Saki Hikari Fancy Goldfish

Saki Hikari Fancy Fishfish is our recommendation if you want a professional-grade, fish-specific prepared food. This 3mm sinking pellet contains beneficial probiotics, seaweed, wheat germ, as well as seaweed. It will improve digestion and support intestinal health. Color-enhancing ingredients, such as astaxanthin and spirulina, help to boost your goldfish’s red coloration without muddying the white areas. Finally, these pellets are packed with Vitamin E and C to strengthen your fish’s immune system against diseases. People love the Saki Hikari line of specialized foods to feed goldfish.

2. Vegetables

Single-tailed goldfish are sleek and torpedo-shaped, but double-tailed fish have balloon-shaped bodies that can lead to blockage, bloating, or swim bladder disease. To increase their intake of fiber, many fish owners will supplement their fish’s diet with vegetables as a preventative measure. We prefer canned green beans, zucchini slices and canned carrot slices. Leafy vegetables such as lettuce and spinach are also good options. If the vegetable is not soft enough for the goldfish to nibble on, you may need to blanch it first by briefly boiling it in water until it reaches the desired tenderness. Although unshelled beans are often used as a remedy for constipation, it is important to remember that they can be messy when placed under water and are labor-intensive to provide food on a regular basis.

3. Frozen Fish Food

Although goldfish are advised to eat lots of plant matter in order to maintain their digestive systems working efficiently, it’s important to remember that they are omnivores, which means they also require healthy amounts of protein. Frozen foods provide a high-quality food source that is not easily dissolved in water. Your goldfish can forage through the day to find the leftovers on the tank’s bottom. They are available at many local pet and fish shops. You can buy them in individual foil-sealed packs or frozen slabs, which you can then break into smaller pieces. Our favorite frozen foods for goldfish are spirulina brine shrimp, daphnia, and krill. These crustaceans’ exoskeletons, which are not digested in the normal way, help flush the fish’s stomachs and keep the food moving.

4. Hikari Cichlid Excel

To avoid bloat, freshwater herbivores as well as African cichlids need a plant-rich diet. These specially formulated cichlid pellets are full of fish proteins, wheat germ, alfalfa, and spirulina. They also contain color-enhancing krill and spirulina. Hikari Cichlid Excel pellets come in both floating and sinking versions, just like many Hikari brand food products.

5. Repashy Super Gold Gel Food

Are you looking for a food that’s not a pellet and is goldfish-specific? Repashy teamed up with experts in the field of goldfish to develop a premium gel food using the finest ingredients. Gel food is easy to digest and soft for goldfish. Repashy Super Gold is a wonderful mix of krill and algae. It also contains egg, plant proteins, fruits and flowers. This mixture is also chock-full of essential vitamins, calcium, and beta carotene for color enrichment. Goldfish owners love to feed Repashy Soilent Green to their goldfish. This is an alga- and plant-rich gel mix that has an amazing 8% fiber content. This article will show you how to make Repashy Instant Gel Food in just 10 minutes.

6. Xtreme Pellets

Xtreme Aquatic Foods has one of the best, all-in-one formulas for omnivore fish, and we regularly feed their pellets to our goldfish, community fish, and cichlids in our retail store and personal aquariums. The special recipe includes krill, shrimps, squid, and even spirulina alga. To make a well-rounded, complete diet, they also include important nutrients, vitamins, and minerals for healthy growth and natural color enhancement. All Xtreme Fish Foods are made in the USA. You have the option to choose between 1.5mm Floating Pellets and 1.5mm Slow Sinking Pellets.

7. Hikari Gold

Ever wonder how goldfish and koi are related? Both of these distant cousins were originally created from carp in East Asia. Therefore, consider bringing in Hikari Gold koi food into your goldfish’s meal schedule. This floating pellet of high quality is made for cold water fish. It has easy-to-digest ingredients and can pass through the body quickly even in cooler temperatures. In addition, the food is specially formulated to develop excellent body condition and optimal colors while avoiding unhealthy fat accumulation. These pellets can be a cost-effective way to feed your goldfish.

8. Xtreme Spirulina Flake

Spirulina (or cyanobacteria), is a blue-green alga that is widely consumed as a food source for humans and poultry. It is naturally rich in protein, iron, beta carotene, vitamins, and fatty acids. By mixing it with fish, shrimp, and beneficial supplements, Xtreme has created a spirulina flake food that fish love. You can easily reduce the size of the flakes to make them more manageable for fry. If you prefer a sinking food instead, Hikari Algae Wafers have an excellent balance of proteins and veggies like seaweed, alfalfa, and spirulina.

9. Hikari Red Parrot+

Most of the foods on this list have been focused on providing good fiber and roughage, but what about getting your fancy goldfish to display the most amazing colors possible? Hikari created a floating pellet that can be used to increase the coloration of bloodparrot cichlids. It also works well for goldfish. This recipe contains a ton of natural color-enhancing ingredients like chili pepper, phaffia yeast, krill, astaxanthin, canthaxanthin, lutein, and marigold flowers. It also contains beneficial probiotics that promote healthy growth and help with digestion. Hikari Red Parrot+ can be added to the weekly meal rotation of your goldfish for an extra boost in color.

10. Algae, plants and other leftovers

As you probably know, goldfish are more than happy to eat most aquarium plants if given the chance. You might be able to feed your goldfish from an aquarium that is too full of plants or algae. Got aquarium decorations covered in hair algae? You can temporarily move your aquarium decorations into your goldfish fish tank to give them a thorough cleaning. Prune your overgrown stem plants, scoop out your excess floating plants, and toss the trimmings into your goldfish aquarium.

If your tank’s water surface is completely covered in duckweed, consider transferring a goldfish into the afflicted aquarium until all traces of duckweed are gone. (Just be aware that your water piggies may snack on smaller fish if given the chance.)

Thankfully, there are some live plants that are tough enough to withstand goldfish, so if you’re looking to set up a planted goldfish tank, see the following article to learn about the top 5 easy plants we recommend.