Do (young) koi eat dirt?

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I recently had to put a few small koi (~4 inches) in a plastic container for treatment against -probably- sleeping sickness. In this container I added some stuff, like a PVC pipe so they could hide and be protected from the torrent of the airstone, some activated carbon and I even tossed in a few plants: some watercrest, some duck weed and a floating mosaic plant.

I wasnt overly cafeful and a fair amount (say a tea or table spoon) of soil ended up in the tank, that was attached to the plant roots, dirt in the bucket I used or whatever. It sank to the bottom, and soon after I noticed the koi "vacuuming" the bottom of the container. Sucking up the dirt, and I assumed, spit out anything inedible. Except the latter I never saw.

2 days later.. pretty much all that soil.. is GONE. Its like my maid vacuumed the container secretly! I know koi love to dig in dirt, searching for food, but do they actually eat it? And even if they do, how could they possibly break it down, it would just have to come out again?
 
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I didnt do forensic analysis of the dirt I put in, but it looked like dirt to me lol.
Perhaps I should add a few spoons of pond earth to it again and see what happens.

One reason I found this interesting; the sleeping sickness my small Koi apparently suffer from, and why I quarantined them, seems to occur when young koi are moved from a natural pond (with earth bottom) to a concrete one. As happened in this case. And now I see them eat dirt. Really looks like they miss the natural bottom.

Even further fetched; when I put them in, they seemed near death, and buoyant. It appeared as if they had to use their fins to get down, if they did nothing, they slowly floated upwards, head or tail first. They no longer do that. Is it because they are getting better, or swallowed enough dirt lol?
 

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