Save Money When You Buy Gold Fish or Koi Food
The keeping of koi is a hobby enjoyed by many many people worldwide. Everybody strives to get the very best from their ponds, filters and of course their fish. Considerable expense is incurred by most enthusiasts in attempting to get the best out of their koi and one of the most expensive and ongoing cost items is the cost of food. To emphasise this consider that if a fish eats 1% of its weight every day and if there are 50kg of fish in a pond then the owner will feed 0.5 kg of food every day. This amounts to 182 kg/year. At between R40 and R50 per kg the food bill can work out to more than R8,000 per year. Even a small keeper can incur costs of R500 per year quite easily.
I no longer sell any pond products having sold my company more than a year ago but this article is still relevant. I do believe Focus koi food is still sold but I can't vouch for any changes that may have taken place.
Given these facts it is important to share the secrets to minimising food costs and simultaneously maximising the benefit to the fish and the water quality overall. The fish quality as measured by rate of growth, absolute size, and colour are determined to a large extent by what and how much the fish eats. The water quality is a direct function of the food fed to the fish and this fact is rarely discussed and little understood. In simple terms high quality food made from high quality raw materials fed in the correct quantities results in less fish waste products and less waste from the food itself. The lower the waste the better the filter works and the better the water quality and the better/happier the fish must be. It is as basic as that.
The article is intended only to allow yourselves to better understand how to get the best value for money when you buy a food.
Make sure you look at the analysis of the food you buy. The ash, fibre and moisture percentages are worth absolutely nothing. So the higher these percentages the more the money is being wasted. If there is no analysis then you can bet your life your are buying a very low quality food and possibly worse a quality that varies dramatically. Ask yourself a simple question - if you were proud of the food you sold would you provide information on it? Now consider the following:
If a 5kg bag of food contains 15% ash, 10% moisture and 3% fibre then 28% of the bags contents (amounting to a whopping 1.4 kg) is a total waste of money. This means that the R300 you paid for the 5 kg bag actually resulted in your paying R216 for food (3.6kg) and R84 for rubbish (1.4kg). The really valuable part of the food is the protein content and this is what you should really be prepared to pay for.
Worse still 18% of the food (ash and fibre pass through the fish) now has to be handled by the filter - 900 gms of solid waste has to be removed from the pond. This is why in ponds without bottom drains you see a lot of faeces appearing on the bottom of the pond in a short space of time.
A good quality specification (this was the Focus food specification when I sold it up to 2004)
Comes in 4.5mm, 6mm, 8mm and mixed pellet sizes with 15% extra free in 2.3 kg and 5.75 kg buckets (in 600gm and 1.2 kg boxes only mixed pellets are available). The basic analysis is as follows:
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Protein 35% minimum
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Ash 5% maximum
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Moisture 10% maximum
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Oils 3.5% maximum
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Fibre 3.5% maximum
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Contains all essential trace elements and essential amino acids as well as colour enhancers.
In comparison to the above when you buy a 5 kg bag of FOCUS KOI PELLETS you are buying 4.1kg organic food potential and 900gm of rubbish with only 400gm of solid having to be removed by the filter (by the way you get an extra 15% free). This is why all koi keepers who use FOCUS KOI PELLETS will see improvements in the water quality - they will see the bottom of the pond is much cleaner and the water discharged from the filter contains less muck.
It is common sense that if 100% of a koi foods organic content is digestible then most koi will be able to digest up to 100% of the food fed to them leaving nil % to come out the back end and be captured by the filter. Because there is fibre in the organics 100% is not achievable. In practice the koi keeper is looking for as high a digestibility factor as possible Low quality raw materials (high ash is best check on this) also equals low digestibility. Have you ever compared a high quality dog food to an ordinary supermarket brand? You will see considerably less waste and the dog will eat less in kgs. The reason is the same as being explained for FOCUS Koi pellets.
Focus Koi food is also formulated to ensure all essential trace elements are incorporated as well as colour enhancers such as Spirulina. The pack shows the complete analysis.
Focus Koi Food has been modelled on the highly successful Phoenix 2000 previously imported by ourselves from the UK.
FRESHNESS
A very important factor in selecting a fish food is freshness. Most fish foods are imported which means they have an unknown history. If possible always buy local food from a reputable retailer who turns over his stock.