What good is GH?

[Gazza]

Hi Andy,

My fish stop feeding I would be so lucky and now we are in sort of summer its even worse mate

[Dave Collins]

Thanks Duncan, for me at least, you've confirmed my thinking on the matter.

Dave

[wallo69]

Yes I second that! Thanks Duncan, sound and reasoned argument.

I have ran my pond now for two years not adding anything but RO and bicarb so have similarly fielded this debate far to often recently, from those who would consider 'zero GH' a health risk to koi.

As Andy has brought water recycling into the equation with the potential of stripping everything out, it was worth double checking what risk there was in taking all GH out entirely, and consider adding something back in, but your comments cement my thinking on this one.

On your comment about feeding them what they dont normally eat I was surprised you mention silkworm - do you have any reasoning behind this one in particular as it is so widely promoted?

Anyway, for now I shall keep moving forward with the recycling more confident we are not creating a problem!

Regards,

Mark

[Dave Collins]

Hi Mark

I think of silkworms as being something that Koi never see naturally and they are far too fat. It like us eating hamburgers all day long.........

So moving forward, I too will run at near to zero GH and 1 or 2 KH with recycling and RO. At these levels it becomes even more essential to feed a quality food to ensure that the Koi are getting everything they require. This I intend to do with the purchase of a good manufactured feed with the addition of home made paste food using fish meal etc.

Dave

[Duncan]

hi guys

I cant put my finger on the research right now ( busy trying to sort a new kitchen) but silkworm as well as being a totally alien food souce for carp, has all the wrong proteins, neutrients and amino acid profiles and is one of the contributing factors for spontaneous diabetes in carp. I can see why its been introduced ( very high in protein) but little reasoning as gone into its use in carp ( You would not grind a T Bone steak up and feed it to carp just because its high in protien)

dont get me wrong; one or two every now and again is not going to cause a problem, but as dave points out in his analogy, if its served up as a regular constituent of a staple food source trouble will ensue

[kimr]

Hi

I have to agree with Duncan over the food issue, the only time Koi will eat fish is at the egg stage and when the fry are small, having had fry in a pond with Koi they have never tried to eat small fish, so once the fry become say an inch in length they are safe. Fry hide in greenary, plants, blanket weed that Koi feed of off and I feel it is only by mistake that some fry get taken. As to silk worm unless a maple tree is growing by the waters edge there is little chance os silk worms falling in so again not likely to find. I feel the same about shrimp, we feed our Koi shrimp because they love them, and the only way they would eat them in the wild is if they could catch one in the water (fresh water shrimp) It would be interesting to know how much protien they get from the things they eat in the pond. How often do you see your Koi eating from the sides and bottom, this is covered in life which in turn would have protien, I have recently seen some pictures of Koi that have been caught by anglers and if you think Japan have big Koi believe me these are beast's, all on natural food. Going back to silk worms, they seem easier to feed, would we buy packages full of dried slugs worms and snails, doesnt quite sound the same does it, but Koi love them

[DaveB]

Here in the North North east of england we have excelent water with regards TDS 65ppm. However most of that is G.H. and phosphate.and very little K.H. I ran RO. 100% and removed both G.H. and phosphate to almost zero. In all honesty the koi did looked better and at the time believed this to be down to just changing the amount of water but could be wrong. I stopped using the RO as I could not keep a close eye on the p.H which continouly required the k.H to be buffered with bicarb. Also my boiler went on the blink and I did not want to cool the pond by addingtoo much cold water. Anyway one improvement which no one seems to have picked up on is I never had any blanketweed whilst running RO. Whether this is down to removeing the phosphate or G.H. or the micro nutrients , I hazzard a guess. perhaps when I get sorted out with my new Koi. I might buy myself some new membranes and start it up again. Best Regards Dave