Koi "Pellets", Nutrition and Balanced diet

[kevin]

Guys

After posting last night under the Spirulina heading thought I would add my further thoughts on the above subject which I know is not new to this forum but further food for thought-pun intended!!

Firstly, I am new to this hobby since 18 months, prior that an angler for 35 years and whilst that may not corrulate, I have as a hobbyist fished for Carp since the early 80's when High nitritional value foods were used to catch them. Point being HNV type foods are lacing in this hobby.

Therefore, when I came into this hobby firstly I was astonished at the cost of Koi food and secondly how reliant keepers were on pellets. I have looked into most of the poluar brands and soon as the word koi is on the packing the price seems to treble on which are largely wheat flour based ingredients.

Whilst in Japan recently I realised how inexpensive a certain popular food was, yet the perception to many here in the UK is that the more you pay the better the food.Now dont get me worng, I know there are shipping costs, wholesaler profit margins, VAT, dealer margins etc but fact is the most food is made up of inexpenive ingredients, which is not to say they need to be expensive to be any good but there are superior ingredients we can feed as a suppement to what is laregly a poor diet on its own.

I dont wish to make this post too long but would like some thoughts from others on here as I beleive a balanced diet of various foods is what our fish require and I have formulated a paste significantly superior to high street varieties based on fishmeals, crustacean, seaweed,wheatgerm,liver powder,milk proteins and other ingredients which incorporated in the right amounts provides a supplement that I feel is lacking in pellets, together with treats such as cockles,mussels,pearl barley etc.

Remember...a balanced diet, pellets are not this no matter how expensive they are.

Regards

Kevin

[Bern]

Hi Kev,

There used to be a poster on many of the boards that did have the relevant background to examine and comment on the nutritional value of pellets. Sadly, I haven't seen him post for a couple of years. However, he didn't completely disagree with you. His major rants were at the bulking agents used in their production that weren't best suited to a carp diet. At best he thought pellets were a good staple and could be the basis of a good diet. But it needed augmenting.

Over the years that I have been in the hobby I have seen many foods come and go and have tried most of them at some point in time. I too know that my pellet of choice is much cheaper in Japan for the reasons you mention. I continue to use it because a: - I haven't found a locally made alternative, and b: - it doesn't throw up any surprises e.g. discolouration etc, that I have occasionaly experienced with other foods.

So like you I make a paste food - but the commercially available Kusuri one which I supplement either direcly or additionally with treats like cockles, mussels and prawns. I also use garlic paste in the paste mix and occasionally blend it with orange juice or soy sauce for flavour. When making up a pearl barley mix, I'll add a spoonful of the dry paste mix to it as well.

So my koi's diet for several years now consists of pellets and paste food.
When I am lazy or in a rush they get more pellets, when I have the time more paste food . But in the main a mixture of the two.

BTW - Note to other readers. Kev and I know each other we are in the same Koi Club.

rgds Bern

[PapaBear]

I thoroughly enjoy threads like this one myself. I feed pellets to our Koi, but I simply refuse to spend more per lb on fish food than I do on Prime Rib! That being said, I still manage to feed them a high quality pellet with a good nutritional profile and no color enhancement to speak of.

There is one small exception. I make my own concoction for hand feeding the fry we grow out.
I mix up batches of cooked bait shrimp (heads, shells, guts, and all), high protein pellets, whole boiled egg, bell pepper, Garlic, Onion, and any leftover cooked veggies may be on hand at the time. Add a little Orange Juice to the mix and into the food processor it goes to pulverize the whole mess into a thick paste which I then spread on cookie sheets and freeze. Once frozen I break it up into peanut brittle size chunks for ease of feeding and put it in baggies for freezer storage.
I get great growth and train them to eat from my hand at the same time, which is a nice little bonus. When we first began with this there was an infestation of small snails in the lined fry pond and by the time the fry would finish eating my hand would have baby snails crawling all over it. When I would remove my hand I would crush the snails between my fingers and drop them in the water for desert and they would tear into them like it was a huge treat. After acquiring a taste for snail meat nature took over and the snail population went to zero as the fry grew big enough to eat them. It has me thinking seriously about setting aside a small tank just to grow the damn snails in next year.
I'm toying with another recipe that incorporates probiotics, but thats another story...

Alright... Where is Steve Hopkins to toss in some good nutrient profile info? Always a good read that makes you think...

[dick benbow]

regarding your initial post you shared the following:

I have formulated a paste significantly superior to high street varieties based on fishmeals, crustacean, seaweed,wheatgerm,liver powder,milk proteins and other ingredients which incorporated in the right amounts provides a supplement that I feel is lacking in pellets, together with treats such as cockles,mussels,pearl barley etc.

Wouldn't mind you sharing your receipe tho I know i'll be frustrated because your ingredients in the UK will be unavailable in the states. But such is life.

I have enjoyed reading the UK koi boards and the wonderful expressive lanquage used regarding, an un-named here, marine worm food. You wouldn't be grinding that stuff up and adding it into your mix would you?

[kevin]

Dick,

Happy to share the recipe with you, dont know anything about your worms!

Firstly, would be a good idea you visit the website .:: Computer Consulting & More, Inc. - Home ::. a company that supply most of the ingredients i use and with whom i have no involvement for the record.

The mix is as follows:-

4 oz lt94 fishmeal, 2oz pre-digested fishmeal, 2oz krill meal (crustacean), 2oz kelp, 2oz wheatgerm, 2oz soya flour, 2oz milk powder, 2oz lactalbumin, 2oz clo (breadcrumbs), half oz liver powder.

All the above is mixed in powder form and to four eggs i add a teaspoon of garlic powder, vitamin mineral supplement, teaspoon of betaine, natural honey and 10ml of cod liver oil.

The powder is then mixed with the eggs to form a plasticine type consistency rolled into four equal size pancakes approx 6mm thick and left to dry in a refrigerator for a few days then cut into cubes and fed to my fish one feed every other day.

As mentioned earlier, this is a supplement for warmer temperatures ( i am heated) with a protein content of approx 40% - in no way i am a chemist or anything of that nature, this is purely based on quality ingredients UK anglers will be aware of when fishing for Carp and i believe a necessary supplement in formulating a quality diet for our koi.

If anyone has any questions, please fire away and i will do my best to answer.

Regards

Kevin.

[l113892]

Kevin-

How well does the paste food do when it hits the water- i.e. is there real small particles that break up in the water before the fish hit it?

[kevin]

Mike

No is the anwser, hence by rolling into pancakes and leaving to dry out in the fridge means you can cut it into cubes easily and the texture adds an element of crunch factor.

Incidenatlly, I add the shells of the eggs too.

Regards

Kev

[Auntiesue]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bern Hi Kev, There used to be a poster on many of the boards that did have the relevant background to examine and comment on the nutritional value of pellets. Sadly, I haven't seen him post for a couple of years. However, he didn't completely disagree with you. His major rants were at the bulking agents used in their production that weren't best suited to a carp diet. At best he thought pellets were a good staple and could be the basis of a good diet. But it needed augmenting. rgds Bern

That would be Bill from England. He should be basking in Spain about now. His plans were to retire there. I know he purchased land a few years ago. That was the last I heard about him. Very knowledgeable about koi food.

Sue

[bekko]

Bill's rant was/is that carp need carbohydrates which are low on the glycemic index (G.I.) scale. The glycemic index rates how fast carbohydrates are digested and converted to blood sugar. Things like highly processed wheat are high on the G.I. scale. Legumes and leafy vegetables are low on the scale.

Unless you happen to be diabetic, the G.I. scale concept takes a little study. I find it easier to just tell people that koi and goldfish need a lot of fiber in their diet. Fiber is carbohydrate which is difficult to digest and ranks very low on the G.I. scale. Everyone who is watching middle-age disappear over the horizon can appreciate the importance of fiber in their own diet.

The carp evolved (was designed) to consume a high-fiber diet. Formulated rations used for both koi and industrial carp are trying to undo evolution. The formulated rations grow carp quickly, but I suspect health and longevity suffers. One way to convince yourself that high-fiber diets are important for carps is to keep goldfish. Goldfish mature and age much more quickly than koi so the effect of diet seems more dramatic. You can recognize the goldfish which were not given enough fiber - they are the ones swimming upside down at the surface with fat deposits constricting their swim bladder control.

Unfortunately, most koi keepers evaluate a diet based on the amount of waste generated and what they see in their vortex. Being less digestible, high-fiber diets generate more solid waste. But, feed manufacturers are eager to give the customer what they want and strive to minimize the amount if fiber included in the diet. High-fiber ingredients also complicate the pelleting process and require additional binders to get good pellet stability.

Providing supplemental sources of fiber to complement the typical pellet formulation works well from a nutritional perspective, but may be a logistical problem. Given a choice, koi and goldfish will usually consume the high protein feed stuffs first and graze on high-fiber stuff at their leisure. This may be an evolutionary response as there is a lot of competition in the natural environment for high-protein food items but carps are somewhat unique in their ability to utilize high-fiber materials.

So, if you throw some lettuce leaves or alfalfa pellets into the pond along with the pellets, the salad is likely to sit there well past the 10-minute interval we are programmed to allow our fish to eat. While the fish concentrate on the pellets, the lettuce and alfalfa pellets are being sucked up by the skimmer and bottom drain. If given some time and the opportunity, the fish would eat every scrap of the roughage, and be the better for it.

Those making paste food have an excellent vehicle for getting more fiber to their fish - although the binder issue comes up again if you're using gelatin. But, the trouble with high-fiber paste food, fresh fruit treats and the like is that they tend to be special occasion sorts of things and the fish may need more fiber on a more regular basis.

Those of us with ponds designed by Fred Flintstone don't have a problem. I can throw a few handfuls of alfalfa pellets into the pond, they dissolve as soon as they hit the bottom, and the stuff just sits there until the koi come along and slurp it up.

-steveh

[Auntiesue]

That's right Steve, I forgot about this being his primary focus. I think we are all looking for that perfect food for our fish. The interest in this thread shows how interested we are in this subject. So what do we do? Study what koi eat in the wild or in the mud ponds and try to adopt that to our ponds? Is that realistic considering that what most of us have is quite different then "the wild" or the mud pond? I would like to settle into 2 types of foods and stop "trying" everything under the sun and offer side treats as often as possible. Can we come to a consenses about ingrediants or profiles to at least base our choices on?