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how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:33 pm
by bicolormoth
okay, 1st daft question. now that i have my 220g tank set up . about 250g with the filter. temp at 17.5C, loads of air and good flow through the filter. ph 7.5 , kH over 100. zero Ammonia, zero Nitrite.
82 little koi from 3/4" to 2" .
how much food, and which food is best.
i was given some ground pellet food, abouy 1mm grain sizes, but when i was told to give " 1 good size pinch per day" i am thinking it isn't enough.
can anyone put me right on this. :?:

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 7:21 pm
by bicolormoth
...... :? ...... maybe EVERYONE is in Japan :roll: ..... :lol:

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 7:45 pm
by eds
I haven't fed koi that small but I'd be looking at feeding high protein food as many times a day as possible! Feed them what they'll eat in a couple of minutes and make sure you take out any uneaten food.

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 9:03 pm
by bicolormoth
okay, high protien pellet it is then, ground down in the wifes blender , lol :lol:

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 9:22 pm
by vippymini
if this is anyhelp i have used these for fry food and found them very good

http://www.zmsystems.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:43 pm
by eds
I get a red granular crumb from TA Aquaculture which is brilliant and very nicely priced. You can order from them online too.

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 10:59 pm
by Davej
Hi Russ,

At 3/4"-1 1/2" I would be feeding them frozen artemia, cheapest way is to find a source where you can get it in kilo blocks,costs about fourteen quid, smash off a bit for each feed and pop the rest back inthe freezer. For the stock you have then a piece 30-40mm square by 15mm deep 4 times a day. Kilo will last 10 days or so.

at 2" they will take the small Hikari growth pellets readily but the smaller ones will struggle. Problem with crushing pellets is that they tend to sink.

How much water are you changing? I go with a constant trickle in and over flow to waste of 20-30% PER DAY in my fry tanks.. If the filtration and water changes are up to scratch then you don't really have to worry about over feeding.

Just a thought but you may want to think about extending their day with additional lighting, they are pretty small for this years brood so you will need to do all you can to push them on a bit..

Dave

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:24 am
by dan57682001
well get some pics up for us then :D i no there only small but it would be good to see how they come on over the winter months, maybe you could update us bi weekly or something. be interesting to see. anyway good luck with it.

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 11:43 am
by bicolormoth
"How much water are you changing? I go with a constant trickle in and over flow to waste of 20-30% PER DAY in my fry tanks.. If the filtration and water changes are up to scratch then you don't really have to worry about over feeding."

i did set up a trickle in/out through my purifier, but was advised to remove it yesterday because i iwll never get through the nitrite spike if i leave it on, ? , so i took it off. :roll:

"Just a thought but you may want to think about extending their day with additional lighting, they are pretty small for this years brood so you will need to do all you can to push them on a bit.."
i do have a HUGE metal Halide lamp that i could put over the tank. maybe on a timer , not sure if it would work through the polycarbonate covers.? , maybe i will have to leave the covers off ? and turn up the heat. ?

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 9:48 pm
by Davej
Hi Russ

What you dont wanna do is put little ones through NPS.. :( :(

Quality water, decent food, heat and light is all they need.

Gonna be a challenge for you balancing things, more heat will mature things faster, personally I would trickle in and out and get the temps up to 23C, monitor water carefully and react accordingly

Dave

Re: how much food for little 'uns

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:29 pm
by dorie
Dave as per usual you are an endless source of great information.

dorie.