[dtbh]

Quote: Originally Posted by JasonS Mike, some fish are just like that. Although I hadn't connected it with 'male' behavior, I think it does match my own fish. The males do tend to 'hit and run' more. An auto-feeder worked well for me last year. Maybe that's an option?

I feed my fish every 2 hours and because of this frequent encounters with my kois I note that kois have many different preferred feeding behaviours and I attempt to list them below :

1. Chagoi style....eat irrespective of what is going on
2. Location-dependent eaters....only eat at certain locations on the surface
3. Mid-water eaters....prefer pellets to be "pushed" into midwater by water return.
4. Bottom feeders.
5. Eat and run.....usually but not exclusively males and they are very irritating as they disturb the others. You can appreciate why kois with this eating habit tend to "leave" my pond very fast.

I personally prefer kois with habit 1. and 3. as they tend to be growers and very pleasing to observe as they feed.

I do not use an autofeeder but I get my maid to feed whenever I am not around (she usually feed 3 out of the 8-9x/day). Some hobbyists term this "remote voice control". Better than autofeeder?