Food and amounts

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greg
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Food and amounts

Post by greg »

While Carl has started the subject of food and which ones people are using etc i want to add another topic to this....

How much, what type, and why?

I last year as you all saw on the "food" thread was feeding a combination of "growth" and "Health (low protein)" pellets with little bits added in such as Silkworm and Paste (Izeki) etc. The base pellet diet was about 400-500grams per day. With me then adding in 100grams of Silkworm per day and a weekly feed of Izeki paste - which i'd then drop the Silkworm that day.

Now this was to 14 koi in a 3000 gallon pond. The koi were quite widespread in terms of size with 3 tosai in there and then the rest Nisai+ which were in the order of 50cm to 75cm/ So i guess you could say the average size is about 60cm over the whole collection. The growth was good with me producing a 67cm sansai from a start size of 55cm. Plus others putting on in these kinds of order of cm's too.

Question is do we think its enough food?

Too much food?

Right type of food?

Is there a more structured way to get to the supposed body weight % feeding rates? ( I guess you could haul all your koi out at the beginning of the season and weigh them. Then again at the mid point and then set up the 2-3% feeding rate that you often hear.

Thoughts?
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Gazza
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by Gazza »

Hi Greg,

You must of read my mind as this was something i was thinking of this morning while out by the pond :D

I have a few less fish now than last summer (may save a few bob on food :lol: ) and i have never really done anything in particular on measuring out the food i just work out how quickly or how much food i am buying each month and then divide it up. I have tried many types of foods or the use and now try to stick with a Japanese type food and the one i use is JPD as i did find that some of the other foods seemed to make my fish a bit fatty especially the growth ones.

I have 4500gls and now i think 10 fish with the smallest being around 55cm and then up to 70cm+ and normally will set the auto feeder to feed once the weather starts to warm up. This will start off with say 6 or 8 feeds per day at say 1 second to start off so i don't go made and they get to start to have some food after the winter.Once this has settled in or i think everything is going OK i will gradually over the weeks increase the amount of feeds and then also the amount of time until we are in to summer nice and warm and 12 feeds per day for a good time. I cant remember the times last year but now we have the Pond Mate software i will try to do something for a record :D

One thing i have noticed before now and it may be i have lazy fish but my fish have never gone mental for food and started to smash around to get the food and i can only put this down to i must be feeding them enough for them all to know they will all get enough food or am i feeding them to much so they don't really want it :idea: :shock: :lol: :roll:

Is there a scientific amount you are supposed to feed the fish or is this just the filter manufactures as thats all the filters can handle :idea: :?:
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tomc
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by tomc »

Greg - you will have seen this elsewhere from me....
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greg
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by greg »

Tom - yes your right i am aware of your approach to this. It is this that has led me to thinking that i am slightly to low on my feeding and i planning to take a more structured approach to my feeding in 2011 with a better quality food.

Be interesting to see what others do if anything.
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by greg »

Nobody got any comments / thoughts looking at Tom's spreadsheet?

I feel he doesn't quite follow what you would expect with feeding rates for the time of year and a close look at his pond temps is interesting. I am trying to mimmick this the back end of last year and through this year.


This makes interesting reading and kind of ties in with the same thought process - http://www.makc.com/feedingkoi.pdf

Also be interesting to get some comment off people with way more experience of koi foods such as Chris Neaves, Mike Snaden who are members here and read their thoughts and regimes. Why they do things a certain way etc.
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by Geoff9 »

Hi Greg
I have a more scientific approach than Tomc,I goto the pond and if the koi stick there head out for food I feed um untill they stop eating.. about 8-12 times a day in the Summer,at the moment I feed them 3 times a day very little amounts well 100gm a week,pond at 12.7.

Regards Geoff
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by carlejo »

I'm more in line with Geoff TBH.

Last year I just sat out the back all day(nice weather in May) and fed them what they needed and just dotted times down on a bit of paper.

I then set the timer on autofeeder. It was something like 1000hrs, midday, 1400hrs, 1600hrs, 1800hrs, 2000hrs, so basically 6 feeds a day.

When I was at a4koi last August, Darrens said I wasn't feeding enough!!!
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koicarpus
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by koicarpus »

I've got my feeder at 10 times a day at the moment, 11 fish in 5500g, 4 fish 70cm+ the rest about 50cm.
Temperature is 22 degrees, and they probably have enough to feed for 5 minutes. To be honest I'm thinking of increasing this as whenever I walk up to the pond they come to the window like they haven't been fed for a week :D
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by Norseman »

Greg,

This is a highly interesting topic, which we have discussed before. Over the last year I have been trying to monitor my fishes food by weight when added to the pond, ie several hundred grams a day. Changing throughout the year. I have looked at Tom's spreadsheet and am interested to hear why the change from low to high protien through the year and why a total stop on feeding during the winter. Surely at the temps we keep our fish at they will stay active and may require nutrition during those months? If their feeding is being monitored closely surely we should be able to get maxium growth without recking body shape during the year. I have heard many people discuss different diets for fish including all the usual suspects of mussles, bread and even pearl barley, but surely a good quality pellet fed at closley monitored amounts should keep our fish at their prime all year round?

On one occasion I discussed the use of wheatgerm pellets over the winter with Mark Davis he asked me one question " at what time of year does a koi decide it suddenly wants to eat only wheatgerm" Obviously it never will. So I wonder why do we feed the way we do?

Simon
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tomc
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by tomc »

Hi

The spreadsheet is a modelling tool based on Japanese published feeding regimes and then tweaked a little for the UK. I tend to follow the temps quite accurately. Regarding the feeding regime, I'm not there - in that (a) I don't weight out the food! and (b) I'm not feeding 2.X kg a day in September but more like 1.2-1.5kg per day. It's a useful guide.

Simon

To try to answer your questions:

1/ High v Low protein. Need to be careful here as it's Japanse "low" v "high" - "low" mean low 30%, high meaning high 30s% to very early 40%s. If you look at a lot "high protein" koi foods then they are a lot higher.
2/ Why switch to hight protein? Because I believe you are in the bulking on season of the koi's growth. So you are trying to add to their diet.
3/ Wheatgerm - frankly, I'm not wed to this in anyway. It's a way of reintroducing easier digestion to a koi who hasn't been fed for a while plus protein content is modest.
4/ Not feeding during the winter? Well, you'd need to start a new thread there. By the way, I'd say they do feed - they clean the pond of every pieces of algae in the process! But most relevant, I think, is the koi genuinely don't need feeding - if you feed them at lower temperatures then all they will do is push this towards further egg production. I kind of summarised it on another forum as:

Winter - I'm on a diet
Spring - I like to produce eggs so feed me sapringly
Summer - It's rather warm, I like to snack and graze
Autumn - oh heck, winter soon, better pile on the weight and length

Tom
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by Norseman »

Hi Tom,

Thanks for that reply, I can completely see what you mean. In truth we are trying to apply some control on to how our fish develop through their natural life cycle. As you rightly say we don't want them pushing all their efforts into egg production in the spring with the obvious problems that can bring later in the year.

cheers

Simon
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by Dave Collins »

I basically follow the same system as Tom, I use an Excel Spreadsheet that I have made myself following Internet research. Although I don't weight the food every day, I do use the same scoop to feed which holds roughly 35grams of the current food used. Apparently I can't upload the Excel file so here are some photos (hopefully)
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I'm not aiming to grow my Koi fast so they are not force fed.. and I drop down to 10°C in winter with 2 small feeds a week. If any one would like a copy of the spread sheet then pm me.


Dave
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greg
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by greg »

Maybe this is something as a group we can develop the same as the "pond software" and put into the open as a tool to use.

If we could link it up with a RELIABLE chart as a length to weight calculator too then people wouldn't need to pull all their koi out and weigh them etc to get into the ball park feeding regime. (Tom which calculator do you use for this?)

I'd certainly be interested!
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by boogatee »

... at what point does all this food stop feeding the koi and just passes straight through to waste? My understanding of a koi'a anatomy - they have no stomach - so more food in too quickly, through the front door, means undigested food out the back door. :shock:

I've tried the auto feeder route ... and abandoned it. I don't feed anywhere near the amounts that most claim and yet my smallest koi is 55ish cm (just like you Gazza :wink: ). None of my koi are from the jumbo bloodline, so I'll never have 80-90 cm koi - no matter how much I force feed them. I also note that the amount of waste produced is exactly equal to the amount of food that I chuck at them .... but then, this is in keeping with my understanding of their anatomy.

I don't trust feeding guides that food manufacturers provide as they have ulterior motives and unfortunately I don't know anyone who can tell me that 'x' amount of food will give me 'y' cm's of growth and feeding a mature koi 'z' amount of food is enough to keep them healthy.

Ultimately though, my instincts tell me that a fair portion of what I used to spend on food (when using an auto feeder) was going straight down the drain (pun intended).... :D
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Re: Food and amounts

Post by Gazza »

Hi Chris,

Looks like we both have some tiddlers :lol: :lol:

One of the reasons i like the auto feeder is because the fish have no stomach or gut the same as us so i like to feed 12 times a day so i can do little and often to give the fish a good steady feed through the day.....................no scientific evidence just what i have been doing and so far it seems to be working OK and the fish seem cool with it and don't get fat and seem to keep their body shape :D
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