Miscellaneous ramblings on food and feeding...

[JohnHuff]

I have owned my pond for about 10 years now and I've noticed that my fish have never gotten over 7 inches in size. They might get fat, but not longer. I'm wondering if there's some truth to the saying that fish grow to the size of the pond (800g) or it's just that I'm not feeding them that much.

I typically feed them less than 1 level teaspoon's worth of medium sized pellets. Right now I have 4 koi. 2 Shubunkins, 6 gold fish. They vary from 7 inches down to 1 inch with more smaller ones. During the time I was out of town and just after I came back I lost 5 koi and 1 Shubunkin and 6-7 goldfish. Some simply disappeared (preyed on? died and got scavenged? stolen?), 3 died of disease and some died of unknown reasons.

I don't like that rule of thumb of feeding by time. I've noticed that usually my fish gulp down what I call the first serving. It's usually about 5 pellets or less. They spend about minute masticating it, then they come for more. I've taken to just serve them that first serving and then no more. I think that's better than feeding all you can eat for 3-5 mins because my fish can eat 2 servings in 5 mins. And because it's Fall now, I'm feeding them 3-4 times a day to try and bulk them up for the non-feeding winter months.

After I came back I bought 4 Shubunkins. 3 of them died of unknown reasons. I thought they died because they starved to death. These 3 never caught on that I was their food deliveryman and never came and ate with the others. They just disappeared and their bodies were never found. The 4th one did eat, but not that much and finally disappeared. My final conclusion was that the Shubunkins were just a bad batch.

There's not conclusion to this monologue, as I said, it's just a miscellaneous rambling. For sure, next season I will be adding more filtration to the pond as I'm pretty overstocked and extra filtration has never hurt anyone.

 

[Waterbug]

Andy Moo is my goto guy on fish growth vs pond size. I must have listened to these more than 20 times. Never gets old.

The theories about pond size vs fish size and fish producing chemicals to limit growth has been around forever. But there's never been any scientific data to back it up that I've seen so to me it's just a made up thing.

 

[dieselplower]

Did he say a pound of food a day to grow out a foot long fish?

 

[Waterbug]

Do you think he said that?

 

[JohnHuff]

Thanks for the links, WB. Just as an aside, I remember seeing a humongous koi at Russel Water Gardens one day. I asked about him and the guy who works there said the koi had lived in a pond where he could press a lever and get food on demand, and that's how he got that big. The koi wasn't overly long but he was tremendous in girth.

 

[addy1]

lol a koi that could eat whenever it wanted to, wonder if it ate all of the time or actually would not be "hungry" now and then.

 

[dieselplower]

Do you think he said that?

That is the way it sounded although I don't think its what he meant. I guess a foot long fish weighs a pound?

 

[Waterbug]

Which video and time code? I'll take a listen.

 

[koiguy1969]

foot long... now i am hungry...for a $5.00 footlong...subway, here i come!!.......lol

 

[capewind]

I have owned my pond for about 10 years now and I've noticed that my fish have never gotten over 7 inches in size. They might get fat, but not longer. I'm wondering if there's some truth to the saying that fish grow to the size of the pond (800g) or it's just that I'm not feeding them that much.

I am really curious as to how old the koi were.

With goldfish, I dont think there really is a set size per say .. Most of our goldfish are 8-9" but have one that stopped growing at 4" and another that is just over 12" ... The goldfish fry we brought inside to grow out over the winter vary in size from 4" - 8" and only span a couple of months in age (spawned in 2012) ... We also have a few outside, spawned this year, that are already 4-5" ...

With Koi, I think it is entirely possible to stunt growth. We have three koi who are all about 4 yrs old, who spent their first 2.5 yrs in 750 gallons of water. They have been outside for a bit over a year, and have only grown a wee bit ... two are now about 10" and the other is maybe 8" at best. Their offspring (May 2012 spawn), who we over wintered in the 600 are already 8-10" in size, and the couple of months they have been outside, have grown a noticable amount.

The differences between when the older fish lived inside, and those we overwintered, is the younger fish had a LOT more, and more effective filtration.

 

[JohnHuff]

Hi:
I'm afraid I don't know how old the koi were. They were all store bought koi.
Goldie and Barney were from Petco or Petsmart. They were 3 inches or so when bought 4 years ago and grew about 1.5 inches in 4 years.
Mr. Lemon and Oscar were from a LFS. They were about 4 inches long when bought and grew about an inch in the 2 years I had them.
All 4 were different types.
Goldie was a gold colored metallic angular koi who turned black.
Barney was a black and white mottled soft shaped koi.
Mr. Lemon was a yellow/black/white koi with a very small mouth.
Oscar was a mud/black koi shaped like a torpedo.
In reading other peoples' posts, I'm realizing that I'm not really feeding them that much in comparison.

 

[capewind]

In all honesty, I dont think the limited amount you were feeding was the reason for their lack in growth. If they didnt find enough to eat in the pond, I think they would have died a long time ago. Since it was FOUR koi, from two different locations, I am also doubting they were all runts.

 

[mrsclem]

when we first started with koi, the garden center pond guy told us that once the water temps reached 75- feed at least 5 times a day! We did that for years and had some koi reach 3'. Water quality became an issue and so we cut back to 2 feedings per day. I changed brands of food 2 years ago to a blend instead of all growth food and have noticed my koi are not growing as fast. Going to switch back to the growth food next year and increase feedings and see what happens. We had 6 dozen koi at the start of summer with average size 14", going thru 7-8lbs of food a week!
BTW- before someone freaks out, sold 200" of koi this year.

 

[DOUBBLE TAP]

I think that the food that they are getting is on the low side IMHO one mouth full is not a serving. I feed mine 3 full handful's 2-3 times a day for 16 koi from 6"-16" (most in the 10-16" range) and one 7" goldfish. It may or may not be the reason that they are staying small. I have heard that the older koi get the slower they grow and the first 4 years are the prime growing years and after that they'll gain 1-2" a year. But it might be best that they stay small with 12 fish in 800 gal the quicker the 4 koi grow the quicker that they will outgrow the pond. If they stay smaller you can still enjoy the beauty of koi for a longer time before you have to rehome them because they got too big. If you still want to grow them I would up the food to grow they need to eat either 3% or 4% (cant remember exactly) of there body weight daily. Just be sure to keep an eye on your water quality and scoop out any uneaten food. I started out with 5 handful's per feeding and my water suffered so I tapered back to 3 handfuls and the levels fell back in line. You have to find the balance between enough food to grow and not so much that your filter can't handle it.

good luck

 

[JohnHuff]

I feed mine 3 full handful's 2-3 times a day...

How big is your hand?

Thanks for the replies fellow forumers. All good information and insight to have!

I feed mine a mix of food. I notice that growing food has more protein and is sometimes marked as Spring or Summer food, whereas less growth food is marked as Fall food and has less protein. I usually buy my food at the big box stores. One thing I've noticed is that they no longer have the big selection they used to years ago. I'm not going to mess around much with food since this is the end of the season but I'll check out the food online for next year.

I guess my ideal is to have 7 inch fish and no bigger than that. Too small and they're too small to see. Too big and you run into water quality problems.