[Steve Nguyen]

Larry,

for my fish, they are liner pond so no natural food to munch on during winter. the green carpet algae is pretty gone after fall season kicks in. in general, I thought the fish look better in colder water than in during summer months. colors look much more sharp and bright. I think showing fish during the cold months would be best but we human like sunshine.

Steve

Quote: Originally Posted by PapaBear Thanks for the feedback, and keep it coming please. My thoughts on the matter revolve around replicating as closely as possible to the diet they would encounter in and idealized mud pond, which would likely include bugs, worms, crustaceans, spirulina and the tasty critters that thrive in it. Part of my thinking connects to the fact that in a typically mature pond, even during winter Koi will graze on an ever increasing % of carpet algae as they move into and through winter unfed, yet they come out of cold waters with brighter colors and no yellow shiroji if it was any good to begin with. Clean skin even though they have self-supplemented their diet with chlorophyll rich feedstuff going in and coming out. Another observation is that last winter I got to see Koi come out of an extra deep mud pond just about one month prior to show time. They really couldn't have looked much better, even though they were munching on whatever natural foods may have been in the deep water, most of which I would at least assume would be naturally color rich.