| If your feeding color food, I would recommend you stop 6 weeks before the show and switch over to something that contains no shrimp meal or spirulina.
From heading a few benching teams over the years you'd be shocked at what comes in with the fish at show time. probably the most fun one is a bag full of pooped algea. " but I stopped feeding a day before"....LOL...feeding what commercially made food or mother naturer's.....Your fish are not hurt by not feeding 24-48 hours prior...it helps to get most out of their systems. just the act of respiration they are ridding themselves of waste! That's why at the airport i always switch the koi out of the transport bags and into clean home water for the trip back!
other comments that may help is when netting the koi in the home pond start boxing the smaller ones first. they are harder to catch and often get stressed
if they experience the entire trama of seeing running fearing the net. To help them get over the stress get them in to the show friday morning as soon as the water quality folks clear the show ponds. It gives them time to "settle" in.
I have seen nice koi brought in minutes before cut off that should have done much better but there colors were really off from stress. probably goes without saying for someone like you Dale but for the sake of others when boxing your koi for travel make sure the nose and tail is not pointed in the direction the car or vehicle is going. If you have to brake suddenly you can
bump a nose or break a tail. When the nose faces the side of the vehicle, a hard brake has them rolling sideways which is much more easier for them to cope with.
I'm taking too much space here but maybe a few others can comment on the QT treatment after the show....to use salt? when to feed, what temp etc? |