| the truth of the matter is that in all things there is a time and place for everything....in the winter time females instinctively put any food into egg production to insure the continuation of the species. That's why Toshio sakai
shares with us all that we hold the koi at 52 F and let them experience winter. This way we are feeding so minimally that nothing goes into egg production, infact they may very well have to re-absorb the protein back to keep up with their motabolism. Which is a good thing to keep them from getting egg bound.
Once a female has spawned her energy goes back into rebuilding her body and then growing in length and girth again like any other normal animal.
so the readers digest version of all this is: let your mature females* experience winter so that after spawning or the time to spawn has passed they will be able to put their food energy into length and girth.
* females generally sexually mature at 3/4 years of age. So this means basically the time to grow your babies is the first two winters with heat and food. After that the girls need to slow down. Koi as our beloved JR is apt to say 'are four season' fish.... |