Lionhead Progress (2nd Month)

This month (exactly 30 days) I basically did the same feeding method as the previous month, the only thing that really changed at first was 1 week I had started giving them a cube of Hikari's tubifex worms once a day, as well as a small piece of Omega One freeze-dried brine shrimp (personally I do like Hikari's freeze-dried brine shrimp better) although I ran out of tubifex worms the last week or two. On Halloween I did give my fish a thick slice of boiled squash which my bristlenose did seem to enjoy. So, the lionhead have initially been given more food this month and I have added in a few new variables compared to the previous month.

Another thing I did was add in some of McCormick's organic ground garlic into the bag of nori I was giving them because before it seemed like they enjoyed pulling it apart more than eating it so, I wanted to see if this would make it more palatable for them (which it didn't seem to make a huge difference). Keep in mind that the garlic powder does not really stick to the dry nori in the bag, but garlic being strong in scent I figured after a few weeks the odor would add to the flavor of the nori regardless. Garlic also gets added to a lot of fish food in general to make it more palatable for fish which is how I figured it would be okay for them.

During the last 2 weeks I wasn't too impressed with the visual size of my goldfish and I also managed to drop my FishMate feeder into the aquarium which initially broke the device and delayed regular feedings from happening for my fish, but I am glad I kept an eye on the device after that to see that it was no longer feeding my fish due to the water damage. That being said the past 4 days I decided to double their pellet food and brine shrimp intake just to see if I could plump them up a bit more before weigh day, and also to see if they were capable of eating more as they have been increasing in size as we saw the past month and they have been looking a bit hungrier lately (which is also why I have been giving them an increased amount of Earthworm Flakes as a treat this month).

One more thing I changed was purchasing some Omega One Goldfish pellets, so for the past 2 weeks or so I have replaced half of their pellet food mix with the Omega One as I am hoping this stuff can help increase head-growth (and oddly enough my bristlenose also likes these and she rarely eats anything other than Tetra Veggie wafers and some vegetables on occasion).

Sumo, Ramen, and Pocky (left to right)

A surprising turn of events happened in terms of my lionheads weight during this month. Sumo is at 24g now (a 12g gain since a month ago) which means he doubled in weight, while Ramen was barely reaching 25g this month making it a near tie-breaker with lil Sumo (only an 8g gain since a month ago), and Pocky surprisingly surpassed Ramen in terms of weight at 28g (with the same 12g as Sumo) although didn't quite double in weight this month as with Sumo. This means on average my fish have gained 0.86g a day this month, which puts Ramen closest to the average amount gained. Last month the lionhead averaged 0.34g a month, which means with a slight food increase and some changes in food the lionhead gained an extra 0.52g.

Future Plans...
I want to see if an increase in water changes and the amount of water changed actually has a significant effect on the size/weight/growth of goldfish, and try to compare that to these past two months of growth.

Hikari Lionhead - Review

I have been using the Hikari Lionhead pellets on my fancy goldfish for around a year now on various goldfish and I just wanted to give a quick review on what I think about this fish food.

Size
These Hikari Lionhead pellets are relatively big as they're around 1mm in size, and one of these pellets equals about 4-6 pellets of 'New Life Spectrum for Goldfish' so, you probably wouldn't want to use these for fry/young goldfish, or small mouthed/throat-ed fish. Also these pellets tend to dissolve pretty quick in water, if left uneaten they will basically expand to about 2-3 times their originally size in the water and thus dirty your water pretty quick overtime.

Smell
I noticed that these pellets have a very strong smell and can easily stink up an indoor aquarium. That being said I'd say these are more ideal to use for outdoor ponds because it can smell up a room in your house through the aquarium water. For myself, I'd only feed this as a small treat once in awhile if kept indoors, or in small quantities with other pellet food daily.

Fecal Matter
These can possibly make your fish have thicker fecal matter, and generally the fecal matter is very dark brown in color when only fed this so, I do worry about constipation becoming an issue. This could perhaps be beneficial for awhile if your fish is perhaps having very stringy looking poop.

Head Growth
I really haven't noticed an increase in head growth and such with this, but based on how my fish look and other fish I've seen that eat this it seems to possibly help develop a higher arched back closest to the head of the fish (although the higher backs may come with age and eating in general more so than with this food).

Taste
Some goldfish may not be overly into this food as one of my ranchu appeared to like it more than the other, and the one that liked it the most had grown to be about 10 grams bigger than the one that didn't. Which could perhaps be useful if you're trying to quickly grow out certain goldfish.

Overall
I did not find my fancy goldfish had gained any real head growth from consuming this product over the course of several months, which was the main reason I bought this to begin with. Feeding this as a daily diet would also not work for myself as the food has too strong of a smell for indoor use in my opinion, and I worry about fish constipation with this product. On a scale of 1 to 5 I might give this a 3 at best.

Ranchu Weigh-In

Its been around 23 days since the ranchu's last weigh-in and Bumblez has finally put on some weight at 35 grams now, while Oakki is a whopping 40 grams.

Bumblez (left), and Oakki (right)

Bumblez gained 3.5 grams since the last weigh-in and Oakki gained 6.5 grams. In my opinion most of Oakki's weight/growth seems to be at his belly area and tail length, while Bumblez growth seems to be at his back and possibly a little on his wen. I still do around two 50% water changes at least twice a week, sometimes the depth of the aquarium water varies but I feel they do better at a depth no more than 10 inches (which was recommended to me by the breeder as well).

I've been trying out numerous foods lately and the first week they ate at least twice a day which varied and possibly consisted of some nori, NLS (New Life Spectrum pellets for Goldfish), sliced ginger, Hikari frozen bloodworms, plain cooked white rice, and Hikari Lionhead pellets (just playing with different food options). The second week since I had a fish sitter they were being fed once a day sharing a 1/4 Tsp of the NLS. The 3rd week I got a fish feeder which dispersed NLS gradually over 6 hours, then a few Hikari Lionhead pellets over the following 6 hours, and then the feeding repeated again throughout 24 hours so they're almost constantly able to graze for tid bits of food (which I've read is more natural for ranchu/fancy goldfish) although it's not really going over the amount of food they generally consume in a day.

Having the feeder does seem to make them more active and curious about finding food so I'll probably continue with that regime while also giving them frozen bloodworms 1-2 times a week along with it, and perhaps a little piece nori once a week (Bumblez seems to enjoy that, while Oakki seems to enjoy the daily pellets of Hikari Lionhead).

Meet Meko

Sadly while I had taken an unexpected week long trip my fish sitter had informed me that Ebo was not looking so good, a few days later he passed on to the big fish bowl in the sky. However, I now have a very awesome new veil-tail betta I got from PetSmart this past weekend and his name is Meko. I picked that name because my betta's seem to follow a pattern of their names ending in 'o', the 'k' is his own unique letter, the 'e' is to carry on Ebo's memory, and the 'm' is to carry on the beloved Mr. Moto's memory. While Ebo was a green-blue color, and Moto was a blue-black color, Meko is a blue-red color... I wish I could have found a betta that wasn't so blue but ultimately I picked him over the rest regardless. Meko does seem to have one flaw currently... his right fin-side gill seems to always be flared out slightly so I am currently trying to treat him to see if it changes.

Meko

Unlike my past betta's Meko seems to be a picky eater as he does not care for the usual Aqueon floating pellets. I had yet to find a betta that didn't like bloodworms, that did seem to catch his interest and get him eating. BTW I don't recommend the Aqueon Betta Treat Bloodworms, they're a bit too big for betta's in comparison to the Hikari brand which has smaller and redder colored bloodworms (I do recommend those ones as they seem better quality in my opinion). I even tried to pass the Aqueon pellets onto my hungry mollies but they too didn't care for them.

It was by chance that I tried out some new goldfish pellets which I just bought for my expecting ranchu, the New Life Spectrum 1mm goldfish pellets. Not only were the NLS pellets about half the size (probably a bit more than that even) of Aqueons but they were actually a better size for the small mouth of my betta. Shockingly, Meko LOVES them (his gills even flare open at times and he quickly gobbles them up, two at a time if he can)... although he refuses to eat the ones that sink to the bottom, fair enough. He even prefers the NLS pellets over the Aqueon bloodworms, he just goes crazy for the NLS pellets, it's awesome to see (I kind of feel bad for my past betta's seeing how happy Meko is with this new food). I had never seen a betta fish eat so much, so now I'm buying Meko the NLS for betta's (the cheapest I found for this food was on eBay for $8.99), and while this may be a bit pricey for betta food it will last a very long time as betta fish do not eat that much (eh, normally).

I also did some research on NLS for betta's online and was surprised to find that so many people and betta breeders were highly recommending it. I also found it interesting that people were mentioning that it may not have the highest amount of protein compared to other betta foods, but they were saying that it's actually a higher quality of protein and food that the betta is getting that matters more, which ultimately seems to make this NLS great for betta's.

*I will try to update this post later down the road when my NLS betta food arrives and let you know what Meko thinks of that. In the mean time here's a good video I found on the NLS food.

R.I.P. Ebo