| Feeding:
I'm using the Koi Kichi Buffet on demand feeder. It took me about 6-7 weeks to get them trained on this, mostly my fault I guess. I keep feeding some by hand which I don't beleive you should do, during this training period this probably hurt my growth a lot, this was peak time for growth. Went on vacation in June and when I came back they figured it out. Any new users should just coat lure in veggy oil and leave them alone, no additional feeding, and they should figure it out in a couple days. In June my fish were eating based on my calculations ~8% of body weight per day. There were several 18-23" 2-3yr olds in pond then which probably skewed those numbers, I'm betting the tosai were eating at least 12%+ percent of body weight per day. With water temps over 85deg, which is basically the weather we have been having from late june untill yesterday here food comsuptions has been much less, the group closer to .5-1.5% per day, whatever they feel like eating. This is roughly the same amount of food for my small group (~1 lb per day). Here May-June and Sept-Oct water temps are usually in the 70s and growth is great, its just been a really hot Sept so far.
Many pond filtration systems may not be up to the task of handling the additional waste of higher feeding, so this feeder may not be a good idea for many folks. Also if you have a number of large fish this may be to much crowding in one area (you could move some water with a jet or air stone to help spread out food more if this is the case).
Food type:
My philosophy starting out was to feed mosty a low protein wheat germ based product. Most of growth was spring when I was feeding Hai Feng Quick-grow (a basic 32% wheat germ based product) and Azoo Growth (35%). Azoo Growth just b/c its so cheap. It probably would have been better to push some with higher protein food looking back. I've used a lot of Zeigler 43% feed, in small pellet so the smaller fish would be more likely to get it (starting in July), I consider this a decent very cheap food for tosai (corn is 3rd ingredient) or as a mix in. Also starting in late August I used Yamakoshi (Sarge's food) 38% G/C formulation, not really so much of a color food, the G/C and Fall versions of the food are closer to the formulations I look for.
This is what I have gone through so far this year from my memory:
~25 lbs of Hai Feng Quickgrow (32%)
~30 lbs of Azoo Growth (35%)
~25 lbs of Zeigler Growth (43%)
~7 lbs of Yamakoshi G/C (38%)
2 lb sample of Yamakoshi Prem (40%)
2 lb sample of ShoKoi (38%)
< 1 lb some other small samples
2 lb Silk Worm Pupae
2 lb imitation crab meat
~3-4 lb shell on shrimp
1 lb collards
Currently feeding roughly an equal mix of Hai Feng WG, Zeigler G, and Yamakoshi G/C, with some collards and shrimp. |