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I have the feeling this topic in this thread is going to need to be revived again and again, as it is an important topic for serious hobbiests and breeders in the US. I will have to pass by the store I used to buy it from to find out the brand, it was a popular one. I probably won't pass that way until this weekend. But I will definitely check as one of my goals is to get some more.
As for the quantities, I do not remember how much is found in the natural spring and mountain water in Japan. I will need a few days to do some redigging to find all the old related articles. Alot of it was my own research to find sources of cobalt and erythrin for cheap. It is not just important in terms of how much, but what form determines much the koi can actually absorb in a beneficial way. Just tossing a rock in the water probably won't yeild much in terms of results. I do know when you see it in color enhancing food it is always listed as cobalt carbonate or cobalt sulfate or bicarbonate.
Give me a few days to dig up the old info. It also has just some very good general info about how koi digest and utilize different color enhancers, which really helps when deciding what and how to feed.
Now I do not go after color enhancer food, instead I use food that has a minimal amount of spirulina (usually yellow pigment), and feed shrimp in abundance for the erythrin (red pigment). Shrimp are able to get the cobalt sulfate, or erythrin out of their natural environment due to their diet, and metabolize it in a way the koi can digest and utilize. The articles explain better than I can how they do that and why.
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