Koi Fish Feeding
Do your koi fish look sick or sad because they are just sitting at the bottom of the pond? They probably look lifeless, listless, and all the rest, but you would too if you were stuck out in the cold. Not to worry, they are okay, they are just reacting to the cold water. In the winter months when the water turns cold, in Southern California the water gets to be about 50 degrees or so, koi fish aren’t as active. In other states it tends to snow, so the water must get super cold and the pond freezes over! Unfortunately, I have never seen a frozen pond, so my experience comes from a cold water pond, not a frozen one.
So when the water starts to get colder you can tell because the koi start to move slower. They aren’t as active gliding back and forth from one end of the pond to the other, but rather they start hovering. This is a good sign to reduce the feeding significantly. Unless you have a responsible maintenance professional like Aquatic Federation to care for your pond on a weekly basis, the uneaten food will start to rot and begin throwing off the water chemistry. Even in cold water fungal clouds will begin growing around the leftover food. Your ammonia count will definitely start to rise (albeit at a slower rate), but it is not good for the fish nonetheless. I recommend watching your fish. If they don’t come up for food when you go out to feed them, then don’t feed them.
You also want to start feeding them a different type of food. Switch to a wheat germ food because it is easier for them to digest. The food with heavy protein is good for them when the water is warm. They are able to pass it through their systems a lot easier during the spring and summer months, but when it starts to get a little cold they could get backed up. It may even come to the point where the food is just rotting in their system. This is definitely bad and it even sounds gross! Even though the cost of wheat germ food is more expensive, a bag typically lasts longer just because you aren’t feeding as much or as often. It is well worth the investment.
If the fish are looking totally listless, stop feeding altogether. A good test is to throw in some food, and if there is no surface skimmer, watch the food and if it goes uneaten and expands like when cereal is left in milk for a while, then stop feeding the fish. All this will do is put a strain on your filter. Although if the weather starts to get a little warmer and the fish are starting to swim a bit, start feeding them a little. You want to build up their immune system, so when the water does start to get warmer you want the koi to be strong enough to fight off any sort of disease that’ll try to harm the fish.
All in all, observe your fish. Seeing how they behave will help build up your fish sense. You’ll start to get a feel for how they behave, how much they eat at certain times, and after going through a few seasons you’ll know your fish better than they know themselves. Love Your Fish.
Nothing can be more frustrating than bringing home your new fish only to watch it die a couple of days later. Not only is this a waste of resources it is also a drain on your emotions and psyche. As one whose worked in a pet store in the past I am aware of the questions and issues that people deal with when they want to start keeping fish. Fish are not like other pets such as birds, small animals (rodents), or a reptile because it is a process. It is like keeping a garden because you need to make sure the soil, or in our case the water, is properly cycled and conditioned. So let’s go through 3 things that will get you started in the right direction.
The first step is to select the proper sized aquarium for your fish. When selecting the aquarium, it is always better to go with a larger aquarium than a smaller one. With a smaller aquarium it is more difficult to keep the water conditions safe for the fish. For instance, if you overfeed the fish, the leftover food will work more quickly to foul the water in a smaller tank than in a larger one. Another issue is the temperature. With a larger tank it is easier to keep the climate stable. So, if you’re just starting out keeping fish, resist the temptation to go with a 3-5 gallon tank, and go with a 20-40 gallon aquarium.
The second step is to fill the tank, add one or two fish, and wait. After bringing the tank home, setup it up along with the filter, heater, and fill it with water. Don’t forget to dechlorinate the water if using tap water. Once the temperature has stabilized (usually 3-4 hrs after filling), then add a fish or two. Don’t get too attached to these fish as these will be considered the “tester” fish. These fish will initiate the nitrogen cycle. There are many products available that claim to cycle the tank within hours. In the past these products have not worked for me and I’ve spent countless dollars trying to find that miracle product. The best product is time. Just wait for the cycle to take its course. The most important thing you can do in the meantime is feed the fish sparingly. You don’t even need to feed them every day. A three feeding per week routine will work fine. If the fish survive for about 14 days and they look healthy (i.e. not breathing hard, no white spots, laying on the ground, or hovering in a corner) then it is usually safe to say that you can add more fish.
When adding more fish don’t forget to acclimate them safely. It really stinks when you’ve waited this long on to bring home more fish and improper acclimation induces sickness. So float the bag they came in for about 5-10 minutes, and then open the bag and fold over the top. Slowly add about a ½ cup of tank water into the bag. Wait another 5-10 minutes and add another ½ cup. Repeat this process 3-4 times and then add the fish only into the tank, and discard the water in the bag. This is a good practice that has worked for me in the past.
Follow these three simple steps, and keep your freshwater fish alive longer. Be patient, wait for nature to work out, and avoid the pitfalls that other hobbyists have had to experience.
Leave a comment, let me know if you like this post, don’t like this, or want to continue this discussion. Thank you and Love Your Fish.
Freshwater Planted Fish Tank
Are you looking for a fish tank? Are you still considering if a fish tank is right for you? Well here are a few things to consider before diving into a commitment with an aquarium. When you go into the local pet store I’m almost 100% positive that they will not tell you all of the work that goes into a fish tank. Now I have not seen a self sufficient fish tank to this day, so this means that it will require your attention in order for it to stay looking good.
The first thing to note is that one needs to consider whether to go freshwater or saltwater. Now if just starting with the hobby, I would recommend going freshwater. I say this for a few reasons. The first is that when the fish get sick (and they all get sick) it usually is easier to treat a freshwater tank than it is a saltwater tank. It seems that disease in a saltwater tank spreads faster and requires quicker reaction time when it comes to medicating the tank. That is not to say in a freshwater tank you should wait until they start dying before medicating, but generally you do have more time to medicate before things get really bad.
Secondly keeping the water levels correct in a freshwater tank is easier to maintain than that of a saltwater tank. A saltwater tank needs to have the correct level of salt, so one needs to constantly refill the water level of the tank with freshwater to make up for the evaporation. With busy schedules, family, and friends not many people just getting into the hobby really want to commit to something like that. Routine water changes are necessary for both fresh and saltwater tanks, but on a saltwater tank if the water is not changed on a regular basis the nitrates will begin to rise, the pH will fall, and that is not good. A freshwater tank gives you more leeway, and you can typically get away with longer periods of time between water changes.
Finally the cost of all of this is a lot less when comparing a freshwater setup to a saltwater tank setup. For a typical saltwater aquarium setup be prepared to spend roughly $50 per gallon. This is because you need to buy the lights, filter, protein skimmer, chiller (if necessary), live rock, and sand. A freshwater setup is a lot less expensive because you don’t need the live rock, chiller, high intensity lighting, or protein skimmer. Also, when you do maintenance you don’t need to add saltwater (which costs money), as do the buffers it takes to maintain the proper water quality.
So for those just getting into fishkeeping, I recommend freshwater to start. See if you like it. If so, then make the investment into saltwater. That is what I did, and it seemed to work. I learned a lot by doing freshwater first. Looking back, if I started with saltwater (like some of my friends did) I don’t know if I you would be reading this blog.
Love Your Fish.
Did you know that about 50% of the time your fish could avoid and/or recover from illness if given the proper nutrition? If you go into your local PetBig you will find a myriad of different types of fish food. Not only do you have the choice of whether your fish would like pellets, flakes, sticks, and the occasional freeze dried food; they all have a specific use. There is the general diet, the vegetable diet, foods for carnivorous fish, color enhancing foods, and even medicated foods. Now with all of these choices how do you know which one is good for your fish?
The first step is to determine what type of fish you have. If you have no idea what type of fish you just bought, research about it on the internet. It is extremely important to know the dietary requirements of your fish. Without the proper nutrition their immune systems will not function properly thereby leaving them more susceptible to disease. If the aquarium is stocked with both herbivores and carnivores feed them a combination of the two types of foods. There is no rule against feeding fish a mixture of foods. The fish will tend to select the foods they like and ignore that which they don’t like.
Secondly deciding on the texture of the food depends on the preference of the fish. The nutritional value of a flake food versus a pellet is negligible when compared to one another, so both are a good choice for your fish. Although, some fish may have a preference of one over the other which will become obvious during each feeding. This preference will ultimately determine which food to feed your fish. So my recommendation is to buy the smallest sized container of a flake food and a pellet food that you think your fish might like and try it out. As for the freeze-dried variety of food whether it be worms, brine shrimp, or water fleas, these can also be incorporated into your fish’s diet. Use them as a supplement to the flake and/or pellet food they receive on a daily basis.
So a balanced flake food should suffice for most freshwater fish. There are specialty foods available for cichlids, goldfish, and strictly carnivorous fish, but overall a well balanced diet will do the trick. For marine fish, in my experience, I have found that an all around flake/pellet food in conjunction with the brand P.E. Mysis is a great diet. I make sure that the dry food has the ingredient spirulina in it, and I try to use only this brand of mysis shrimp. It seems that these shrimp are the largest, most nutritious frozen shrimp on the market today. Now, these shrimp can also be fed to freshwater fish, but due to the high cost, I usually only feed them to saltwater and prized freshwater fish. There are more types of foods that can be fed to your fish, but that will be addressed in a future post. So, that being said, go now, equipped with this information, and feed your fish some ono grinds (tasty food)!
Let us know how we are doing. Leave a comment telling us what you would like to know more of, less of, or anything else about fish.
