 | |  | | Fish Care, Food and Feeding |
| In addition to providing your fish with energy for growth and repair, a good balanced diet improves their health and resistance to disease. You will find that a good diet also improves coloration and promotes reproduction.
To understand what is meant by a good, balanced diet, it is useful to understand the constituent elements:
PROTEIN
- Essential for growth in young fish and for bodily repair.
- May be supplied in animal (fish meal) or plant (soya meal) form.
- Because fish cannot store protein in their bodies, a supply needs to be readily available in their diet.
- Your choice of fish food will depend on the age of your fish: Young growing fish require more protein than maturing older fish.
- The protein you provide for your fish should be from a variety of sources since some proteins are of a higher quality than others.
- Good quality flaked fish food and dried fish food are good in this respect since they contain good quality protein.
- With 42% protein, Hikari Gold Pellet is a high protein food. A colour enhancing food proven reliable by koi specialists over several decades. This floating pellet is of the highest quality ingredients, with added carotenoid NS germ to bring out the brilliant colours of your fish and to promote health and vigour.
FATS/OILS AND CARBOHYDRATES
- These are the most important energy producing foods.
- However, a diet too high in fats and carbohydrates can lead to the unprocessed excess energy being stored in the fish's body - and this can lead to health problems.
- A good staple food to try is Hikari Staple Pellet. With 37% protein, this is a floating pellet that never clouds the water. A balanced combination of the highest quality, easily digested ingredients including stabilized vitamin C. This well respected food gives you healthy fish with consistent growth.
VITAMINS, MINERAL AND TRACE ELEMENTS
- These are essential for a healthy diet.
- Good sources include high-quality prepared fish foods such as Nishikoi Nigata Professional Pellets which contain Calcium montmorillonite clay a natural source of health promoting minerals and stabilised Vitamin C.
You can easily ensure that your fish enjoy a good balanced diet by feeding one of the many staple fish foods that we supply. Ready prepared fish foods come in various forms:
Dried Fish Food
- Come in the form of Fish Flakes, Fish Sticks and Fish Pellets - all easy and convenient to use.
- Ready prepared foods from reputable manufacturers such as Hikari, Nishikoi, and Tetra can provide the staple of your fish's diet.
- Most prepared foods have a limited shelf life and should be used within a few months of purchase. After the recommended use by date the vitamin content deteriorates. Therefore it is better to buy these foods as and when you need them - which is easy with Aquatix-2u.
Freeze Dried Fish Foods
- These can be useful to add variety to your fish's diet and to prepare brood fish for breeding.
Feeding Guidelines
Goldfish
A staple fish food is, as its name implies, a "Staple food" and should only be used as such when water temperature indicates it is okay to do so. When water temperature falls below 4°C, suspend feeding. Over 4°C wheatgerm pellets or wheatgerm sticks can be fed as the type and content of the proteins is such that the fish's digestive system can cope with it. As the water temperature rises to around 7°C a staple fish food can be given. If the water gets over 26°C the fish's interest in food will subside. The fish's activity and interest in food should be your main guide as to the number of meal times per day. 3 - 4 times is reasonable from late spring to the onset of autumn. However many times you feed your fish, make sure their meal time is only 3 to 5 minutes duration.
You can easily monitor the temperature of your pond water using a floating thermometer.
Koi
When feeding Koi you should try to do so in the same place at the same time. Being able to get close to your koi will give you the opportunity to visually monitor their condition. You should feed little and often so as to avoid polluting the pond water with uneaten food. It is recommended that you feed koi twice a day: the morning feed consisting of an easily digestible high carbohydrate food such as wheatgerm pellets and in the evening feed a more protein based food such as Nishikoi Growth Pellets.
Remember - Over feeding is one of the biggest fish killers. Do not feed your fish more than they can completely clean up in 3 to 5 minutes. 3 to 4 times per day is no problem in the summer months providing the meal time is only 3 to 5 minutes duration. Fish don't have a stomach like ours; if they overeat it passes through their stomach like a sausage machine and pollutes the water.
Click here to view our Fish Food range.
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