black moor and red ryukin

Question
Yesturday we bought our 3 year old daughter a black moor and a red ryukin. They both seem VERy healthy and are VERy active. Ive noticed today though that they keep chasing eachother around the tank and "smelling eachothers butts" as my daughter puts it. And head butting eachothers sides. They are BOTH doing this, its not just one of them. When Midnight does it, it looks like its just play. But when Goldie does it, Goldie looks pissed. Goldie will hide out waiting for Midnight to come around and then races out and started head butting.
Is this just normal healthy play? Or are they actually trying to harm eachother?  I was a bit concerned about putting the two fish together. But we were told they are fine to put together.I have never owned fish before so I really know nothing about them. Ive been looking all over the net and the most common answer I have found is that its just common play. But of course, they are usually the same type of fish.
They will swim past eachother and rub up against eachother and are just peaceful, but then there are times they are head butting.
They dont fight over food. When my daughter feeds them I have been getting her to put a little bit on one side of the tank (and goldie usually gets to it first) and then I get her to put a little on the other side of the tank and Midnight goes over to that food. So there is no fighting over food.

I also have another question. Is it ok to put ghost shrimp into the same tank as these two fish? Or should we not even bother since goldfish are bottom feeders anyways? Or and I have had mixed reactions over feeding. There jar of food says to feed three times a day, but ive been told to only feed them once a day. We got them yesturday morning so yesturday and today I have feed them twice a day to try and keep a happy medium until I found out how many times we should feed them.

Sorry for all the questions. Im new with fish, give me a cat or dog and I can do just fine haha But when it comes to fish I am clueless.  

Answer
Dear Christina,
I wonder if Goldie and Midnight are spawning? The chasing and headbutting can be directly related to the spawning ritual goldfish naturally go through as they lay their eggs. Telling male and female goldfish apart can be very hard. But it is usually said that males show tiny little white spots on their gill covers when they are ready to spawn and female goldfish can be very round with eggs (hard to tell with the type of goldfish you have already though since they tend to be very round as it is)

~You could try adding several Ghost Shrimp...But remember that there is the chance that your goldfish may try to eat them. If your aquarium is large enough, (at least 20-30gals) then you could add a golden or black Mystery snail as a different critter. These snails make quite good tankmates for goldfish and are very interesting aquatic pets to keep. Remember whatever you do, not to mix any tropical fish with Goldie and Midnight. Tropical fishes needs cannot be met if they are kept with goldfish and they never do very well.

About feeding. It's really best to feed your fish three small meals per day. Even though it is widely suggested. I don't recommend feeding just once a day. If you think about it, wild goldfish are constantly nibbling for food in nature and tend to eat small amounts all day. So it's much better for their systems to get several small meals a day and it's really good to supplement their quality flake food diet with small amount of frozen and freeze dried foods of all kinds. Sinking algae tablets are much appreciated by the largely herbivorous goldfish. A small piece of zuchinni or Romain lettuce is also eaten eagerly by goldfish. Thawed and de-shelled green peas also gives them good fiber that they really need in their diet. Just remember that small and frequent is better than large and in-frequent. And don't forgot to do those vital water changes. At least 30% twice a week with the use of a gravel vacumm. Remember that the replacement water should always be dechlorinated and of equal temperature to that of your goldfishes aquarium before pouring into their tank.
~It would also be good to have a aquarium test kit for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate to moniter these levels. Knowing these levels in your goldfish aquarium is very important as any trace of ammonia or nitrite is very toxic. Normally, beneficial bacteria will be present to consume and convert the ammonia into less toxic compounds. But these bacteria take many weeks to get established in your tank so ammonia and nitrite problems could arise. It's very easy to test for these levels and should ammonia or nitrite appear. A good 30-50% water change is essential.
If you have ammonia present it means your beneficial bacteria haven't yet established a sufficient enough colony to deal with the waste load. Daily testing and doing those vital large water changes when needed is very important.
Soon, the bacteria will establish and ammonia and nitrite will fall and soon dissapear. This means your tank has cycled and there should be not as much worry about any traces of dangerous ammonia or nitrite.

And you can also establish a regular maintenance schedule of water changes/filter cleanings and not have to do daily water changes all the time anymore.

I really hope this helps! I may have to agree with you, I truly love fish and once you get the basics down on fishkeeping it comes pretty easy. But I have to agree that dogs and cats are much simplier and maybe even a bit easier to care for!

Best wishes to everyone!
Karen~