Dick, Like your friend, I am also biting the bullet and giving it a go. While mine will not be any show specimen, I hope she will turn up big and nice.
Keeping away from color feed will be difficult to do as I have her in a pond of Gosankes. When Kentaro-san (Sakai Hiroshima)visited our ponds recently, he chided us for not feeding color feed all year round. So My koi buddies are taking his advice to see if our kois will develop nice hi without staining the shiro.
With rgds to feed qty, he advised that for 9 pieces of kois varying in size from mid 60s to 70s, we shud feed Approx 500 grams over 6 meals a day. And in our hot weather, we shud not hope for plumb juicy kois like those in Japan. In warm waters kois do not retain body fat
. I have a pond depth of 5 feet but only 16 ft in length which is not very conducive for satifactory girth development.