On Jul 8, 9:52*am, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Sun, 8 Jul 2012 00:13:22 -0700 (PDT), Doug
wrote:









On Jul 7, 1:45*pm, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Sat, 7 Jul 2012 12:37:02 +0100, "D. T. Green"

wrote:
Trying to give the pond goldfish a more varied diet and using things like
tinned peas is proving wasteful, because the peas sink and the fish miss a
lot. *The bottom of the pond is very soft mud and i don't think the fish can
retrieve them once they are in the mud.

Is there any crafty way to arrange something to float the peas etc in, and
yet enable the fish to get at the food ?

Why feed them at all? We have about a dozen adult goldfish in our pond
and a similar number of fry. They never get fed, and they're thriving
and breeding. Goldfish don't need feeding if they're in a reasonable
sized pond in the open.

How big is your pond? Mine is 2M x 1.5M and about 0.5M deep.

Ovalish, about 3m x 4m x 0.9m deep in the centre, volume about 7.5
cu.m. (say 1650 gallons).

Hmm! Much bigger than mine.

So howcome my four small fish eat loads of pellets every day and often
seem hungry for more? Also the newts seem to eat some too.

They eat it because you feed it to them. I'm saying it's not necessary
to feed them for them to thrive. I also have a newt or two, and a few
toads that come and go (don't think they're frogs; the spawn is long
and stringy) and tadpoles, although like yours, they eventually
disappear before they reach maturity. I don't think the goldfish eat
them all. Some, very probably, but I think the birds (blackbirds and
thrushes) take a lot.

I was worried about the fish eating tadpoles and baby newts and that
is why I fed them a lot instead, which seems to have worked with the
newts but not the tadpoles. The latter have disappeared completely and
here is not even any young frogs, though several adults.

I shall try not feeding my fish to see how they react. At the moment I
haver an automatic daily feeder and they congregate in the open water
around it at feeding time. It will be more convenient for me if I can
stop feeding the fish for several days at a time.

Doug.