Koi feeding

For anyone who has kept pets, you will understand the pleasure of feeding your pets or watching them eat.   Feeding time is a time where you get to interact with your Koi and it is a time where you forget about the day-to-day stress and somewhat just go into a relaxed mood.

I have many young nephews and nieces and whenever they pay me a visit, one of the first thing they would asked when they step into my house would be “Can I feed your fish?”.

A Koi is often judged by its size, body shape and coloration. Hence type of feed, quantity and frequency of feeding is essential for a Koi to develop to its full potential.

Best food for the Koi are commercially produced Koi pellets. The pellets typically comes with different grades: Economy, Staple, High Growth and Colour Enhancing. Economy and Staple typically contains less protein and are relatively cheaper compared to the High Growth and Colour Enhancing Feeds which are frequently used by koi keepers keeping show-grade Koi. High Growth Koi pellet contains wheat germ and higher protein content to make the younger Koi grow faster. Colour Enhancing feeds contains spirulina or carotene to enhance the RED in Kohaku, Showa and Sanke. Some koi keepers also feed their Koi with silk worm pupa but these are expensive.

Occasionally, I have fed them with other food such as boiled barley seeds and also over riped bananas. The fish don’t seem to like the bananas but they eventually got eaten.

Koi is greedy is greedy and will eat almost non-stop. Excess food that cannot be disgested and absorbed goes out as waste at the other end. To grow your Koi fast, it is best to feed them as often as possible, but restrict to small feeds. Give as much as they could eat in 2 to 3 minutes. Ideally two to three times a day. Once in morning, once in evening. Overfeeding will not make the Koi grow faster. Instead it will produce more waste, impose a heavier load on the filter system and impact the water quality. Uneaten food contaminate the pond water.