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Koi Food

Selecting Koi food for your Koi can be something of a minefield...

Not all Koi foods are created equal...

Just as your Koi are a direct reflection on the quality of their watery environment, so too are they a reflection on the quality of what goes into their mouths. Koi are fairly ravenous feeders in fish terms and as any Koi keeper knows they will eat you out of house and home sooner than you can spell "monthly koi food bill"...

Choosing the right Koi food though has obvious benefits. Key amongst these is that your Koi are fed as close to a balanced diet as they can get without having to actually grub around and find their own food as they would have to in the wild. As close to a natural diet as possible is a good thing - since the closer we replicate Mother Nature the closer we get our Koi to optimum condition in which they can fight off disease and remain healthy and happy.

Sadly, not all Koi foods are necessarily the best for your Koi. The truth is that you pay for what you get. And yes, you get what you pay for! Bear in mind what you paid for your Koi in the first place and with valuable fish in your collection - not only from a monetary point of view but from a pet point of view as well - it is important to realise that a large number of Koi problems can be avoided by feeding them great quality food from the very beginning.

Consider what koi eat naturally. They spend a wonderful time grubbing and rooting through mud, sifting out tasty worms, crunchy crustaceans and all sorts of weird and wonderful snacky type things. And avoiding natural predation whilst they are at it - carp are a favorite food of crocodiles and smaller size fish are eaten by any number of predatory birds...

And I have to say that dog pellets as a source of Koi food is not a good idea. Dog food is aimed at and constituted for dogs, not Koi. Fish have very different dietary requirements to dogs and despite the fact that I know many Koi eke out an existence on dog pellets, none have ever won a Koi show, and I don't believe that their quality of life is particularly healthy. If anything a Koi raised on dog food juts goes to show how versatile they are in terms of what they can get by on.

So it is the composition of what Koi eat that is important. They get what is known as a balanced diet, that when you look at it, has a good degree of protein in it. Koi food consists of lots of protein in fact! They also get a good degree of foliage, a wide variety of sources of protein and, being Koi, they are not particularly fussy as to what finds its way down into their gullet as long as it loosely fits the description of Koi food...

This is why with any Koi food the protein content is important. Normally the higher the protein content in the Koi food the better - and some Koi foods have a very high protein content indeed. But the trouble with protein is that it tends to spoil relatively quickly. Koi food like silkworm pupae are excellent sources of protein for Koi but as you can imagine this is a relatively expensive Koi food.

Quality Koi food will ALWAYS give you a detailed breakdown on the analysis of the contents. No Analysis generally means No Good and certainly not good enough for our beloved Koi. A protein analysis alone is not sufficient - as my good friend Tony always says "the protein content, while important, means nothing when taken in isolation."

For instance, foods with a high ash content, or a high moisture content, or a high fibre content, are to be avoided - paying for water and waste material (ash) doesn't make much sense. Fibre is as important to Koi as it is to senior citizens but it needs to be in balance and should preferably be constituted as a natural component of the food stuffs from which the food is composed and not added as an extra 'padder' in the Koi food afterwards.

The rule of thumb is to assess the composition of the Koi food. Typically you want a minimum protein content of at least 32%, with as little ash and moisture as possible. You want food that is made up of as close to the same type of foods that Koi would naturally encounter as possible.

Trust your eyes

You want a Koi food with quality that you can see. For instance, if you see dust or residue in the bottom of the bag, this is an indication that the pellets have not been properly formed, or some additives have not bound to the food properly.

A good Koi food pellet will be rounded, smooth and consistent in the whole bag. There will not be any lumps, or inconsistencies that are associated with poor cooking processes or uneven mixing of the Koi food. Really first rate high quality Koi food will have an almost oily sheen to it as opposed to a dried out old lump of some dodgey mush. Quality Koi food will feel smooth and you might even be tempted to eat it yourself...

Trust your nose

You can smell quality Koi food. It will have a somewhat 'fishy' smell to it - but this should not be overpowering and it certainly should not smell off. It should smell healthy.

Trust your Koi

Your Koi will let you know what's up with their food. Do not worry if they resist new food for a few days - this is typical Koi behaviour. Once they are settled down and feasting well on their new diet you will start to see results over time. High quality Koi foods bring out better colours in your fish, they bring about better and faster growth rates and your Koi will seem to be more active as their overall health levels improve.

Good quality Koi food also passes more nutrition into the fish and less out the rear end. You might even notice a drop in the volumes of waste produced when compared with other inferior Koi foods - and less waste means less work for you and means less load on your filter systems which means less to go wrong.

What goes in must come out. The less that comes out the better!

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