Miscellaneous ramblings on food and feeding...

[DOUBBLE TAP]

lol I'm 6'1" and can palm a basket ball. Its not a heaping handful its a semi closed handful

 

[capewind]

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.

Five times a day sounds like a lot of food at first, but then one has to wonder just how much food is in a feeding. Personally, I am really bad about over feeding, and hubby just makes sure the filtration can handle it. Betting 70+/- koi of that size was really pretty. I love looking at all our babies.

 

[mrsclem]

I never have any food left over in my ponds. It might take them 10-15 minutes but it disappears and then they start back on the plants. My elephant ears seem to be the veggie of choice. They are pulling in the leaves and stripping them in minutes!

 

[capewind]

When I feed, the food is gone within a minute or two, but it still comes out the "other end" LOL ... Between the two ponds, I am feeding about 4 cups per day right now. The baby pond has probably 450-500" of fish (100 babies), and I dont want to guess at the main pond since I added 40 fish that were 3"-10" a couple months ago, not to mention the 30ish fish that were already living there. Will definately be selling off a bunch next spring.

 

[JohnHuff]

When I feed, the food is gone within a minute or two, but it still comes out the "other end" LOL ... Between the two ponds, I am feeding about 4 cups per day right now. The baby pond has probably 450-500" of fish (100 babies), and I dont want to guess at the main pond since I added 40 fish that were 3"-10" a couple months ago, not to mention the 30ish fish that were already living there. Will definately be selling off a bunch next spring.

I've just noticed you live in MA. Is the weather there cold, and a problem for the fishies?

 

[capewind]

I've just noticed you live in MA. Is the weather there cold, and a problem for the fishies?

It does get cold here. Being the most coastal area of the state, the wind chill is much worse then simply saying 20s to 40s ... We had a pretty warm winter last year, and the main pond only froze over a few times. We leave the pumps running year round, so the waterfalls kept areas open... The fish did fine. Hubby is thinking it is going to be a bad winter this year and was just asking my thoughts yesterday about shutting the pumps down this year and running aerators instead, but I dont do well with change. I want to see what fall brings and make a decision from there ...

 

[JohnHuff]

Even though I'm in WA and it doesn't get very cold, it can snow and the pond can freeze over. I'm not sure if it did last year. But I switch off the pump around November or so because I've read that the water circulation as it rushes over the falls actually chills and lowers the water temperature of the pond. Is that correct?

 

[capewind]

I would agree that the flowing water could be further cooled by air temperature, and being mixed would lower the ponds over all temp. With our upper pond (slowly becoming a bog), I could argue the opposite, only in the regards that we ran an external pump, so the water coming immediately out of the filter was actually warmer. It did NOT however stay warmer being mixed in the upper pond, and going over the waterfall into the main pond.