Why Goldfish Eat Extremely: 7 Signs of Overfeeding

Do you ever think that why goldfish rush for eating food all time? Why goldfish eat extremely and how to prevent them from overfeeding. If you feed goldfish without knowing the diet, they will feel like so much food is there that let’s eat them. This will lead to overfeeding.

Goldfish will eat a lot of food because their digestive system will eject most of the consumed food as waste after absorbing nutrients. So they feel hungry all time and will eat as much food as they get.

Goldfish are always hungry and need food every time. If you feed goldfish every time, they will be overfeeding and affecting their health.

In this article, I’ll show some of the ways for preventing goldfish from overfeeding and How to Feed goldfish within time schedule. Also, you can read our detailed care guide about goldfish.

Follow till the end for greater information regarding Goldfish Hungry.

Let’s start

Why my goldfish is eating too much?

Goldfish eat too much because they have a basic digestive system that will eject most of the consumed food waste after absorbing the nutrients. That’s why goldfish feed hungry every time and beg for food when you reach near them.

If you give them food every time, they will produce excess waste in the fish tank. So you need to maintain or clean the fish tank according to excess food waste in the fish tank.

Heavy fish food will burden the basic digestive system and heavy food will produce more waste. It will affect the health of goldfish’s swim bladder and may obstruct their intestine.

Try to give digestible food for goldfish and don’t overfeed them.

How long does it take goldfish to digest food?

You may think their food will digest within 24 hours, but it will take a long for digestion.

The temperature will be a part of digestion too, cold temperatures need more time for digestion due to the slow metabolism of your fish.

How long can a fish go without eating?

Most fish can live without food for 2 days, but in this case, the healthy goldfish can live without food for 5-8 days. If the fish have health issues then you need to feed them periodically.

The young goldfish need to feed periodically due to the low fat stored in their body. So they need food every day for their growth.

How do I know if my fish is overfed? 7 Signs of Overfeed

There are different ways to know whether fish is overfeeding or not. Now I’ll show you 7 signs of overfeeding fish.

The goldfish will beg for food every time when you reach them. You may give a lot of nutrition for healthy growth.

Here are the 7 different signs of overfeeding fish.

Fish are always hungry

Many freshwater fishes and goldfish come near you and start begging for food. This is due to their behavior toward you, When you reach the fish tank they know you are coming with food.

That’s why they begging food every time and you may think fish are always hungry.

You need to change the behavior of fish, so you can feed them periodically according to the time schedule and when you reach without food they may start to realize and stop begging.

After that you need to go near the fish tank and play with goldfish without feeding, they will realize that there is a time schedule for food.

Adding extra food for later

Many new fish keepers have problems with overfeeding. They are worried about their fish’s health and add more extra food than the fish consume.

You will think that extra food will be served for later in the day, But there are problems with adding extra food for later.

If you give extra food for later, it may dissolve after some, and nutrients will be leaked into the water. The fish tank becomes cloudy due to food waste which leads to many health issues for fish.

Food at Bottom of the rank

When you see food floating on the bottom of the fish tank. It was due to overfeeding, too much food will lead to many problems. When you see food floating in a fish tank, don’t feed than for two days.

They need time for respiration otherwise they will start eating and food will be wasted. So you need to feed them correctly and according to time schedules.

A pellet floating on the surface

There are different types of goldfish feeds available in the market, and floating pellets are highly compressed and will float on the water surface every time.

You need to check whether uneaten pellets are floating in a fish tank.

If you found any floating pellets after two hours of feeding, this means your fish feeding is done and the fish are not interested in taking food.

Uneaten food will decay and fall into gravel or sand inside the tank. This will lead to water changing every time.

Dirty Gravel and Sand

All the aquarium setups have gravel or sand at the bottom of the tank. Overfeeding will affect the gravel and sand. Your stone will become cloudy and dirty when decayed waste affects them.

Overfeeding will make your aquarium dirty and cloudy, which will affect the breathing of every fish inside, and may be dead too.

Cloudy water

When you see goldfish tank cloudy water in your aquarium this was due to overfeeding. The Overfeed waste will decay in the water and turns into a bloom of bacteria in the water.

The uneaten foods are fed by bacteria and sometimes they will grow faster than you think. So you need to clean the water if you find cloudy water.

Otherwise, the fish will start dying and struggle for oxygen in the tank. The Explosive growth of bacteria will stress and affect the health problems of fish.

Low pH Level

The uneaten food will produce acids that will neutralize the pH level in the fish tank. The Low pH is caused by overfeeding the fish.

The carbonate hardness will become low due to uneaten foods and begin to reduce the pH level in the aquarium.

So you need to test KH when you see the waste of food inside the fish tank.

How to Prevent Goldfish from Overfeeding

There are a lot of preventive ways for goldfish overfeeding such as using a timed feeder and feeding according to the scheduled time. Use some algae-eating fishes such as suckerfishes and shrimps for eating waste food.

You can prevent goldfish from overfeeding by reducing the feeding time. Use a timed feeder or automatic feeder to feed them.

If you see waste food on the bottom or floating on the surface of the fish tank. Clean the tank as soon as possible, otherwise, bacteria will start growing.

Is Overfeeding a danger for goldfish

Overfeeding is dangerous not only for goldfish every fish. Overfeeding will affect the health of every fish because their respiratory system will be digestion normally. So the goldfish lifespan will be shortened

Don’t overfeed any fish. One of my friends started fish-keeping like me and started overfeeding. when he called me to say that the fish was dying.

When I reached his home, The aquarium was fully cloudy and the air pump was not working. The fish started dying without oxygen and at a low pH level.

So Don’t overfeed goldfish, I have provided detailed information regarding the overfeed here.

Wrapping Up

Now you know the effect of overfeeding the goldfish. Don’t worry, You can keep a schedule for feeding the goldfish and sometimes they will attract us and start begging for food, Don’t give them if the schedule is over.

I think this article about goldfish eating is extremely helpful to sort out problems. If you have any questions, let me know in the comment section.