"Deswinds" wrote:

Hello Deswinds

D Can someone tell me what to do? or how to go about
D encouraging my fish to come to the surface to feed? Right
D now they wait for the "floating" pellets to sink to the
D bottom before they'll eat.

Top feeders and bottom feeders.

D I know, this is hardly a concern, generally, but my
D grandkids don't quite understand why they won't come to the
D surface to eat like they've seen on the tapes they saw. Is
D there a trick to teach them to come up? or is it just they
D are too young. I've 4 goldfish (2" long) and 4 shubunkins
D (3-4" long). They've been in my pond for maybe 2 weeks now.

Top feeders then. Mine go into a feeding frenzy whenever I walk past -
they get to know. 2 weeks isn't a long time for goldfish to get used
to people or to feeding patterns, and if you don't have much cover for
them they'll be twitchy for much longer.

Stick to roughly the same time, DON'T OVERFEED! If there's any food
left over after five minutes then you fed them too much. Don't feed
more than 2-3 times a day. Fish will usually survive indefinately
without food from you (depending on stocking rates, size of pond,
sources of natural food etc) and the most common problem with new
fishowners is overfeeding.

For the kids, might be an idea to give each a single pellet at a time
- holds their interest longer without giving too much feed.

--
Simon Avery, Dartmoor, UK Ý http://www.digdilem.org/