3 Goldfish in 70 Gallon Tank

by George
(Groton, Massachusetts)

We have had three goldfish for about 4 years. One is a beautiful black moor and the other two are fantail ryukin types.

They are all healthy and the only trouble we ever had was a bout of anchorworm which we treated successfully.

My question is about their behavior. They don't swim much, don't sift the gravel, they just stay in the front of the tank all in a row facing out and directly at us when we are in the room. They are all in a perfect row.

We thought perhaps they were asking for more food so we increased that. No results. We give them peas which they love, thinking that's what they wanted, no change. So we don't think they are looking for more food.

We do our water changes and testing. They eat willingly and thoroughly then go back to their posts in the front of the tank looking right at us.

What are we missing?

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Grant's Reply

Hi George

I believe this is an excellent example of humans being trained by Goldfish.

Looking at the image, they seem well fed, so they have achieved their objective of getting more food, but with Goldfish, more is never enough.

The hungrier Goldfish are, the more actively they hunt for food. Well fed Goldfish are much less active.

Your fish can see humans in the room and that means there is a high likely-hood that they are going to be fed, so basically they are watching what you are doing.

Why swim around hunting for food when they know their food source is in the room?

You can test this by moving out of their line of sight and see if they move away from the front of the tank.