What Are You Feeding & Where are You Buying Your Koi Food This ...
 

One of the articles I pointed out on the AKCA website was written and
taught to the KHA's by Chris Neaves. When I asked about a study he wrote up
his views and told me I could post them. He does not work for any pet food
manufacturing company. You can read about him he
http://www.happykoi.co.za/Articles/3...s%20online.htm

In Reply to: Koi Nutritional Studies posted by ~ jan on April 07:

Posting: Hi Jan,
I will try to keep a short story as long as possible!!

Catfish and koi. Koi are not carp – yes they are coloured carp but – they
are bred, raised and kept for their body shape, skin luster and colour.

Koi are not raised as a food source where the only criteria are so many
kilograms per hectare of water and weight of the end product. This means
that the cheaper the input the more profit at the end of the day. A major
cost in fish farming is food. Reduce the food costs and you can increase
the profitability of the farm. (OK - we needed a degree in the obvious for
that statement)

Lets look at catfish compared directly to koi feeds.

Farm-raised cat fish are fed grain based feeds to reduce costs. Catfish can
utilize high percentages of carbohydrate in their diets. Koi can utilize
some carbohydrate in the diet. Cat fish diets vary from manufacturer to
manufacturer but usually contain about 35% corn (usually yellow corn which
is cheaper) + about 22 – 23% wheat middlings, some 5 – 7% meat and bone
meal and some 25% soyabean meal.

That works out to about 60% carbohydrates. The yellow maize is a problem
for koi keepers as it is a pigment that directly affects the white on our
fish. The white back ground is one of the important points of appreciation
on koi.

All this carbohydrate produces digestible energy. As we humans know –
excess energy that is not burned off results in fatty deposits in various
parts of the body. This can shorten life spans. Cat fish diets contain
about 2800 kcal/kg of digestible energy whereas koi diets should not and
most good ones do not exceed around 1500 – 1600 kcal/kg of the diet. That’s
a significant difference in energy in the diet.

Lipids which are a vital and important source of essential Omega 3 and
Omega 6 fatty are kept very low in cat food. Around 1 or 2%. Where as in
koi diets lipids should be 5 – 8%. Some koi diets are kept at 3 – 5% but
this is for shelf life.

If we go deeper into cat fish diets against koi diets and look at the amino
acid profile we find a big difference. Histidine – catfish diets 1.5 : koi
diets 2.1. Valine catfish diets 3.0 but koi must have 3.6. Lysine cat fish
are around 5.0 koi need 5.7. Methiomine – cat fish have 2.3 koi need 3.1.
All significantly different and more importantly koi need more that cat
fish feed.

The vitamins are very important. Vitamin E is not only important in certain
functions of the body but also used as an anti oxidant. In cat fish dies
the level of Vit E is around 25mg/units/kg in koi it is 100mg. Vitamin A is
essential for the skin, catfish diets have 1000 I.U.’s but koi diets have
8000 – 10000 I.U.’s. Vitamin B6 in cat fish food is around 3mg but in koi
it is 6mg. Vitamin C – a very important vitamin is around 60mg in cat food
but around 300mg in koi food.

This is briefly some differences between koi food and catfish food. The
same applies to trout feed (but to a lesser extent) Trout feed has very
high lipids – usually above 12%. In my opinion this is not good for skin
luster on koi.

We must also look at the differences between good koi diets and poor koi
diets. There are many koi foods flooding this country and I am sure your
country as well that have been mass produced in the east. Their companies
often have state subsidies and their labour costs are unbelievably low.
Consequently they sell at very low retail prices.

We did some analysis of a number of “imported” koi foods. More often than
not red and green pellets. Not a single one had the protein content they
claimed on the packaging. Not one had a protein content that koi need. This
was especially true of pellets that were re-packaged. As a matter of fact
their protein content varied between 15 and 18%! Now that’s less than
allowed by law for dog food in this country. Yet they sell tons of it each
month.

Another point to consider. Almost every one of these koi foods had high
peroxide and mould values after analysis. This tells you how fresh the food
is. The imported foods are at least 4 – 6 months old before they get on the
shelves of the shops.

On the other hand there are some excellent imported foods. Not cheap but
very good.

Now the secret is to feed less of a high protein food than more of a cheap
low protein food to your collection.

I hope this helps.
Regards, Chris
------
Now I'm sure some of you will find something wrong with the above, and
that's okay, but I'm not going to debate it with you. As he also mentioned
that one shouldn't get so concerned about people feeding pond grade koi,
alternative (non-koi) foods.

Some of us will, some of us won't and some of us will spoil our pets to the
point they eat better than we do. ;o) Dogs, cats, horses, etc. if not
taken care of require the services of a vet. Fish (thankfully) don't.

Btw, Peter? Last I looked Tetra was pretty high price and had corn in the
1st 3 ingredients. I bet you could find a better quality food for the same
or le$$. I, myself, started out using Tetra, I now use Sho-Koi as the main
feed. At the time, the cost was comparable. ~ jan

-----------------
(Do you know where your water quality is?)

What Are You Feeding & Where are You Buying Your Koi Food This ...
 

Just so everyone knows, Chris Neaves quotes and uses a lot of other peoples work
(best to go to the originals) and he wrote me "I wrote a manual on koi nutrition back
in 1990. I based my own koi food (Shogun Koi Nutrition) on this information."
dont know if it is still available, he lived (lives?) in south africa.
http://www.akca.org/kht/intro.pdf click on his name, scroll down to 1997-2001
Ingrid

~ janj wrote:

One of the articles I pointed out on the AKCA website was written and
taught to the KHA's by Chris Neaves. When I asked about a study he wrote up
his views and told me I could post them. He does not work for any pet food
manufacturing company. You can read about him he
http://www.happykoi.co.za/Articles/3...s%20online.htm



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What Are You Feeding & Where are You Buying Your Koi Food This Season?
 

Andrew,

Sorry, I do not have anything specific. A friend told me about some
papers written on this subject, but he has been going through an
terrible divorce and he has never gotten back to me with info on the
source papers. I believe as you do that it is unlikely. I could see
where oxidation might have an affect, but it you are storing the feed
in air tight containers it should not be a problem.

Tom L.L.

What Are You Feeding & Where are You Buying Your Koi Food This Season?
 

Folks,

I've really enjoyed this discussion. I heard a lot from both sides. In the
end, I went with Sho Koi from Western Outdoor. I order some filter pads
because they were needed and it gave me free shipping.


"~ janj" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 02 Apr 2006 19:49:54 GMT, "JB" wrote:

I visited a couple of web sites pricing food for this season (Aqua Mart
for
Hakari Staple & Western Pond for Sho Koi) and noticed a jump in prices.
Between the two, Western Pond was offering 10 lbs of Sho Koi for $56.98,
including shipping costs. This seems about $7.00 higher than last year.

What are you feeding? And, where are you buying it?
John

Hi John, I purchased thru Western Outdoor Aquatics/Western Pond. I guess I
didn't pay attention to the price change. I usually get my Sho Koi, 10
lbs.
& Sho Gold at the same time so I get the free shipping. I also ordered a
box of Manda Fu, so that should cover me for this season.

~ jan, certified AKCA koi health advisor.
--------------
See my ponds and filter design:
www.jjspond.us

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

What Are You Feeding & Where are You Buying Your Koi Food This Season?
 

On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 17:42:05 GMT, "JB" wrote:

I've really enjoyed this discussion. I heard a lot from both sides. In the
end, I went with Sho Koi from Western Outdoor. I order some filter pads
because they were needed and it gave me free shipping.

Yea, that free shipping will encourage you every time (especially now
days). ;-) I usually get the 10 lb bag of Sho Koi, which puts me under the
limit for free shipping, but I add Sho Gold, for the goldfish, which gets
me up there. ~ jan


-----------------
(Do you know where your water quality is?)