Platies can eat goldfish food if it’s high-quality food, but this shouldn’t be the only food they eat. Platies should have food in their diet that has higher protein levels than goldfish food.
Platies are tropical fish and are suitable for beginners because they’re easy to care for. Yet, they require different nutrients than goldish to stay healthy.
There are different species of this fish that appeal to different hobbyists and collectors. So, if you want to know what to feed your fish, keep on reading.
Can Platies Eat Goldfish Food?
Platies can eat goldfish food if there’s no other food option available. Goldfish need access to high-quality food with high fiber content and a moderate amount of proteins.
But tropical fish have different needs, and platies belong to this group. They prefer nutritious food, which is high in proteins to keep the fish healthy.
So, if you have run out of your platies’ food, you can offer your fish the food you’d feed to goldfish. However, this food doesn’t offer the needed nutritious needs, so you need to supplement your fish’s diet with live and freeze-dried food to increase the protein content.
At the same time, the platies’ food doesn’t work for goldfish. The low fibrous content of the platies flakes can lead to digestive issues in the goldfish, eventually making them sick.
This means that if you must, you can offer goldfish to your platies fish, but you need to pick a type that contains some crustaceans or worms, in addition to the cereals and vegetables. Fish flakes that are solely made of vegetables, cereals, and plants won’t be suitable for your platies fish.
What Do Platies Eat?
Platies fish are not as demanding as other types, so they can eat a variety of fish foods, as long as you offer a high-quality type.
These fish are omnivores, so they eat different types of plant and meat-based high-quality foods. However, they prefer a high-quality herbivorous diet made of high-quality ingredients.
The best thing to offer these undemanding fish is to offer a wide variety of tropical fish food and see what your fish will prefer. They can eat high-quality flakes, freeze-dried foods, frozen foods, and fish pellets.
You need to pay attention to the list of ingredients and make sure that they cover the fish’s dietary needs. Platies need the combination of meat and vegetables in their diet to keep their immune system healthy and functioning. A strong immune system will keep the fish healthy and allow it to resist different diseases.
At the same time, a diverse and balanced diet is important to support the fish’s normal growth and development. This is how you maintain a healthy community of strong and healthy platies in your aquarium.
The protein content of the food comes from the meat of insects, bloodworms, tubifex worms, and small crustaceans like brine shrimp. The fibers in the food come from different plants and vegetables like cucumber, zucchini, and lettuce.
Fish flakes that contain these ingredients will work for your platies fish. Luckily, there are various flexible choices that you can choose from, and this is why these fish are easy to care for.
Nevertheless, these aren’t the only ingredients you need to look out for. The food of your platies should also contain the appropriate minerals and vitamins that the platies need to stay in good health. Moreover, you need to ensure that the ingredients in your fish food come from natural and organic sources.
How to Supplement Your Platy Fish Diet?
It’s important to choose the right food for your platies, but in some cases, you might need to add some extra nutrients. If you notice that your fish aren’t growing adequately or several individuals got sick and died, it will be a good idea to vary your fish’s diet and add some essential nutrients.
You can add some dried vegetable pellets to the special fish flakes. You can also offer daphne, blackworms, bloodworms, and tubifex worms.
Fish flakes are easy to feed to your tropical fish, and dried, frozen, or freeze-dried live food won’t be messy. These types are less messy than live food, so feeding your platies fish will be an easy task. Moreover, these food types don’t contain the parasites and bacteria that can be found in fresh worms and shrimps.
What Should You Offer Baby Platies?
Baby platies can eat the same food you offer adult fish. However, you need to crunch it to make sure that it’s the appropriate size for the fish to swallow.
So, if you’re feeding your baby platies fish flakes, crunch them into tiny pieces using your hands. Large pieces will only contaminate the tank, and the baby fish won’t be able to swallow them.
You can also supplement the baby platies’ diet with some extra nutrients by adding daphne and brine shrimps to the diet. However, you should stick to frozen or freeze-dried options because the live ones can contain some parasites and bacteria that might kill the platies. At the same time, you need to stick to the smallest ones to be suitable for the baby fish.
How Often Should You Feed Your Platies?
You need to keep an eye on your fish to determine how often you need to feed them. In general, you need to feed adult fish once a day. The food you offer should contain a high-protein content that provides the fish with the needed nutrients.
Young fish need to be fed twice or three times a day, offered in smaller amounts. If you notice that there are strings of waste dangling from the fish in the tank, this is a sign that you’re overfeeding them. As a result, you need to reduce the quantity of food offered and the frequency of feeding.
Wrap Up
Platies can eat goldfish food, but this shouldn’t be their primary source of nutrition. Platies need more proteins in their diet, so you can offer goldfish food and supplement it with other nutrients by adding frozen or freeze-dried worms, insects, or crustaceans.
The most important thing is to make sure that the food includes high-quality ingredients and the pellets are of an appropriate size, especially if you’re feeding baby platy fish.