Personally, I have doubts about the comparisons of the various better brand koi foods. Once you eliminate trout chow and the like, and focus on foods from reputable manufacturers intended for koi, there is a high degree of similarity. From there, eliminate the ones using corn as the grain base and select from among the ones with a wheat base which have fishmeal or other marine animal meal as the first listed ingredient. You will have a list of many brands at that point (each with staple, color, growth and winter versions). For the hobbyist who is seeking the very best and already has the best filtration, water change schedule etc they can achieve, then the extra dollars for a "top of the mountain" expensive brand might give a hair more in results. I've seen far better growth and development in the best filtered/maintained/water changed ponds at low stocking rates using a less costly food than with expensive foods used in lesser environments. The very best food is not going to give better results if the fish are in a lesser environment. I often recommend folks try Azoo, a relatively inexpensive food with an ingredient list comparable to many brands priced twice as much. It contains ingredients similar to the bacteria/enzyme component of Hikari Saki and has the beta glucan immune system enhancer... albeit not as much as in the very expensive brands promoting those ingredients. But, a lot of people who get those expensive brands feed them only a third or fourth of the time, so the koi end up with no more of the "special additive" than in the very affordable Azoo product. Go figure. I know that some of the most expensive brands could be sold at half price and still be very profitable to the maker, but they found that by raising the price and advertising it as super premium, kichi would spend more thinking that it must be a whole lot better. If you feel you need to feed an imported Japanese brand rather than a cheap Taiwanese brand... or, heaven forbid, a cheap domestic brand (which is likely fresher and not shipped for a month in the hold of a ship stuck in customs another month), then go for Hikari. They've been in the business a long time and know what they are doing. I like to use a variety of foods. Hikari Growth is a standard part (50%+/-)of my summer mix, which right now also includes Azoo Growth (20%+/-), Hai Feng staple (10%+/-) (which I got in a raffle and so using it), and Hikari Saki Growth (20%+/-) for the floating mix. The summer sinking mix is limited to a slow sinking high protein pellet from AES (40%+/-) and Hikari sinking wheatgerm (60%+/-). The floating mix changes to increase overall protein level levels until July or so, and then I mix in more staple formula to lower protein and fats somewhat as heading into the "Florida winter", when sinking wheatgerm eventually becomes the only food around November 1. I want to expand the variety in the sinking mix for the summer, but am having a hard time finding sinking pellets intended for koi. My main theory is that by using 6-8 different foods intended for koi, plus an occasional treat of live earthworms and the daily grazing on algae (and the gnat larvae etc in the algae), there won't be some nutrient missing. What one lacks, hopefully another posseses.
Those are my thoughts on the subject, for whatever folks want to make of them.
BTW, tree frogs spawned in the pond this past week. As soon as the eggs hatched out, my 14-year old homegrown had a feast. She seemed to scarf them all up before the others figured out what they were missing. Maybe they've not learned the difference between tasty frog tadpoles and foul toad tadpoles.
05-29-2007
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