What food is better- sinking or floating? Which brand is the best food?
How's life treating you? All of us in KL are eagerly waiting for the day in Awana Genting.
I am of the same opinion with you with regards to the sinkng pellets. Based on my experience, kois will bulk a lot faster with sinking pellet. I have had the experience when I used Sakai sinking Hi Growth Wheat Germ.
I used to only want females and no males, but now I do not mind males with female body line.
I can vouch for the Sakai Hi Growth sinking wheat germ pellets and the Marubeni Hi Growth. Many of my kois have developed the obvious humps with good overall body.
A very good initiative with regards to recognise the male kois. Please let me know your success with the male koi feeding. I would want to try it too.
Koi are part of the carp family and are natural bottom feeders, with their mouths actually located facing the bottom. It is more uncomfortable for them to eat floating food, as they sometimes have to contort their body so that their downward facing mouths can reach the food. Koi also tend to eat more when fed sinking food. The only advantage of floating food is for the owner (to be able to see their koi better) rather than the koi itself.
Hello everybody. I am new here and newbie in this hobby. This is my 1st comment in this forum. I have read somewhere and everywhere about koi feeding. Pls mind my english as I am not that good.
You dont need colour food at all in normal feeding. A good dealer told me(proven fr his collection), he didnt feed any colour food at all to his male kois with strong beni. Otherwise you are asking for secondary hi. You should feed colour and growth/wheatgerm to them for a month, one month before the koi show.
1) When you do not want the koi to grow too fast to compensate for the thinning hi plate. (fast growing tossai with light hi plate will be a good example).
2) When you want the koi to maintain within certain size/bulk and planning to improve the hi/beni plate or happy with the beni/hi plate.
3) When the koi passes jumbo and hardly growing in length with hi growth feeded for a long period of time(to safe money, for better water quality due less protien food & for better health).
4) Feeding hi growth food cont is bad for koi's internal organs. Wheatgerm should be the main basic food. Once a while pump it with hi growth. Wheatgerm is difficult to bulk the koi esp nissai and above. To sustain the girth, yes.
As breeding and bloodline quality improved significantly(including hybrid bloodline), male koi can easily hv good body as female. Further advantage, better hi plate and no eggs related problem. As for today, eggs issue remains unsolved in our region as many kichis have lost their beautiful kois. If you manage to get tossai with long body, thick tail tube, strong bright red hi, good pattern and big head/mouth, just grab it. If it turned out to be female, that is good. If it turned out to be male, you just hit a jackpot by getting "pondan" koi. You will enjoy it all the way thru out his growth. And most important thing, the Mini Koi Show looks permanent in our yearly event. And now, award for male koi!!
Sinking always good for the koi but not for the owner. But I want to enjoy & checking while feeding them so I stay with floating food. Unless those too shy kois and kois that I wanted to grow fast/or improve the beni, I will throw at them sinking food, sellectively.
All the info gained fr great and experience hobbyist.
Welcome bro Borman..........your very 1st post here. I know this will not be your last.
Welcome aboard.. I still find sinking food the best in building the body.. The fact is they eat more and as long as your fished have the appetite, sinking is ideal but hi will stretch for some fishes but not all. I think its all down to the quality of a fish. I have some fish (kohaku) that no matter how big they grow, the hi seems to be able to maintain while most tend to cause the hi to stretch. In fact some of my tosai are so fat that I thought its sick. Moderation is definitely the key for high protein food.
1- for Shiro feed colour food to bring out the sumi. Good shiro wont have much secondary hi.
Thank you guys. Was wondering where you guys were...hahaha..
Bro Andy, moderation is the words for healthy koi keeping but that word is not for you la.. You are going into extreamist already:-)) So sorry to hear about your lost & problem. Those are outstanding showas.
I myself lost 7 due to Bac Gill disease and 3 for the recent koi show. But this hobby must go on. Long story on this one. But your kois behaviour is very similar to bro Yujian's koi. He got the same problem after sending the koi for last year competition. His pond is shallower than yours. Eventually the bottom part became reddish and developed ulsers as it continued brushing against the floor. He didnt make it:-( Bro Yujian was glad actually as it has ended the koi's misery. Hopefully Jeff Arowana can do some magic.
For high grade quality koi with strong hi plate, it will not face any hi thinning issue even with hi growth rate. But when the growth become slow, colour food may produce secondary effect. So better not to feed them with colour food until thinning of hi plate is obvious. For high growth tossai, I will still feed a little colour food and observe the shiroji and beni. From this, we can adjust the feeding accordingly and identify the good quality koi.
Feeding colour food to shiro? That is new bro. Have you tried this? Yup, good shiro shouldnt get any secondary hi but I am worry of the effect on shiroji. Using refresh powder/water conditioner also helps to enhance the sumi. I believe Bro TH feed multi vitamin to his GO Dainichi showa and the sumi emerged very fast.
Anyway, I am glad and happy to be given the opportunity to joint this forum. Thanks bro Shukri for the info.
WE all will do what it takes for the Koi Community. Stay tune more interesting things will come. I will announce once I get the 'green light' from the sponsors. Also Elmen Tan has something plan out for the Hobbyist, so stay tune.
Welcome aboard,sorry that I am not at home when you drop by, do give me a call if you have any plan for the next trip.
Hello Guys, I am new in this forum, but somehow I feel like I have been here for many years, haha.
Btw I finally managed to feed Marubeni to my koi. The good part about it, all kois love it. With Sakai hi growth or FD primo, some of the kois simply refused to eat it unless really2 have to. I noticed it doesn't cause the water surface to become oily. With the new marubeni spirit, I hv saperated my kois between those req colour food and those which do not require it. Hopefully it will bring good result.
Talking abt Karashi, I bought a ginrin karashi more than a month ago but turned out to be male. However, he is the biggest eater. He will remain swimming at water surface thru out the feeding. Anytime he is eating more than my chagoi. Planning to get a doitsu version nx time.
Bro, speaking about Marubeni, you need to try the sinking Super Hi-Growth. It's potently effective, just 10 days I can see the difference. It was first introduced by Bro Alan Sim. Fuyoh! But beni on tosai will be stretching like nobody business.
Bro, I don't know there is such Super Hi Growth sinking... Maybe at that time, it was out of stock as I did ask for sinking type. We are talking abt Cheras Aqua right? Then I will ask for it during my nx visit.
Bro at the moment you can get Marubeni Sinking from Sarawak or from Yamakoshi. Personally I felt that nothing beats FD Primo Plus in bulking up the fish but the price of Marubeni makes better sense. Also fish seems to dislike FD.. Currently I mix FD and Marubeni sinking.
My kois love both Marubeni sinking and floating. Similar to bro elmen's kois, mine are bulking too in a short period. And others, please share your experience.
Bro IKK, maybe I met you in the previous life, haha - your name sounds very familiar.
Anyway, as pointed by Bro ELmen, I too tried Marubeni after seeing Bro Alan's fantastic result. I also followed his feeding method by testing the filter capability of handling heavy load of food - since my kois love the food, it is very easy to overfeed. I kept on adding the food until I reach the equilibrium at about 300 gm per day. Anything more and my water will become sticky and fines will start floating. This is about 0.70% of the kois weight. I tried all the way to 2% but there is no way that my small pond can handle.
Bro Anuar, if the results is good 0.70% will be enough since it's high protein feed, I think we can feed a little less. I am feeding 700gm per day in 3 meals which works out to be about 1% but I don't intend to do this long term. I notice the sludge in the first chamber is very thick (never like this before) so I think they probably cannot digest the high protein food as efficiently as other feeds. As a result, I have to flush and wash the first chamber more frequently.
All these feedbacks are good. All of you can learn from each other's mistake and shorten the learning curve. I find that I do not have to feed my kois as much like before. They are not as hungry as before. I am watching the rate of BULKING.
Isn't this a good FORUM or what?
Agreed, I don't intend to do this long term as well, but the short burst of high protein diet actually helped some of my bigger kois gained some cms. They will go back to wheat germ soon, but then again the Misaki Wheat Germ that is their usual main diet is also high in protein content (was told by someone)? Anybody using Misaki Wheat Germ and know their protein content?
My first chamber is now collecting huge amount of DOCs which I need to scoop out twice a day. And they have tinge of brown and black.
Thanks for inviting me here, very hard to upkeep the motivation level lah at the other side. Now, at least we can "push" each other.
Bro, with all honestly, I am glad that you guys accept my invitation and you guys are here. I really feel like home...........home of the Koi Hobbyists and the Koi Community.
Bro, nowadays, your question is very sensitive. I will let Elmen fill you in, in your INBOX.
Wat U mean by Sensitive .....?
Will kena Su or Not?
It has been my routine to feed floating color + wheatgerm and Growth sinking. My preference - hikari excel + misaki + sakai sinking HG. I am currently feeding >400gms per day. (Thats about 6 handfuls twice a day).
Now only 12-13 nisai, and 7 tosai left. 11 koi have moved on.
Male Murata Kohaku that has grown from 39 cm to 58 cm in about 9 months. Bro shukri - this koi was sexed by you all those months ago ;) as an educational programme for me.
At that kind of size, sexing cannot be a 100%. Still a nice fish, but if you can bulk the fellow, it is a worthy fish.
Bro Shukri, your pec fin to shoulder convention is for larger kois or small kois too? On Kaaj's koi it seems obvious it's male.
Bro Kaaj, Zaidi was telling me your kois in real got really good shiroji, could the above yellow shiroji be due to photography? The koi a bit stressed, telling from the reddened tail. Was it left in the measurement tank long before photography? That could explain the yellowing shiroji.
Bro Zain, kakaka. yes from 1L of Black Label in the pond once a month. The shiroji does appear yellowish, and as james mentioned, is likely due to stress since it was the first time this murata was bowled after all those months.
I am waiting to get my hands on some Marubeni. If anyone is going to buy, pls pick up for me too. I want to see if it is as effective as sakai HG.
My first lesson in feeding was from Sam Tan which i will never forget.
Wheatgerm = RICE, COLOR FOOD = VEGETABLES, High Growth = MEAT. Hence 40% color, 40% wheatgerm, 20% HG is my norm.