How much food for Coarse fish?

[tallgavin]

Hello all

New to the forum and first time poster.

I built a pond a couple of years ago, approx 15,000 gallons. The pond has been naturalising in the mean time with plants and weed added etc. Filtration and aeration have been in place for almost a year.

I have recently stocked the pond with a mix of Roach, Rudd, Perch, Tench and a small number of Carp. Fish vary in size from just a few ounces up to 6lb (I have 3 Mirror Carp at 6lb each). Total weight of fish is approximately 23.5kg (52lb) and total number of fish is around 70.

The reading I have done almost always refers to Goldfish and Koi. The advice being to feed as much as the fish can eat in a few minutes from the surface. The issue I have is that the pond is clay lined and due to the Carp and Tench the water is muddy, tea coloured (this isn't a problem, I knew this would happen). This means that you can't watch the fish feed plus many Coarse fish don't feed from the surface anyway.

I'm not trying to grow the fish to specimen size, just give them enough to be healthy etc.

A calculator I found suggests 1.1% of total weight per day which means feeding approx 260 grams of food per day. This looks like rather a lot when measured out. Does this sound about right?

Many thanks

 

[addy1]

My pond is goldfish driven, I also have a bunch of plants in the water. I can go all summer without feeding them and they stay healthy and fat. There is a lot of food in the water for them.

If you want to feed I would just toss a small amount in and call it good. When I feed mine, which is seldom, I just toss in a hand full if any is left over I don't worry about it. They won't be fed for days to weeks again. The biggest issue is if you toss in way too much food and it starts rotting impacting the water quality.

 

[j.w]

@tallgavin

 

[Mmathis]

It would seem that in order to feed to any specific “rule of thumb,” you would almost have to single out the fish in question and feed them separately. What kinds of diets do the non-koi/GF eat? Are they omnivores, carnivores, herbivores?

 

[tallgavin]

Thanks for the replies - appreciated.
Coarse fish are omnivores in the main. Each species has its preference, Perch are very largely carnivores but the other species stocked will eat pretty much anything.