How often, how much to feed my fish?

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I've had my 15 X 10 oval pond for over 10 years, with 5 koi and a dozen or so goldfish. My feeding procedure is: shut off the skimmer pump, then spread floating fish food pellets, once a day with enough for them to finish in about 15 minutes. They seem happy and healthy. But I wonder, since most fish food advice is to feed "2-3 times a day, with enough to finish in about 5 minutes" if I should make more of an effort to comply with this. I have to shut off the pump to feed, to avoid the skimmer sucking up the food, and I hate to do this too often. Also, sometimes i'm just not around to do multiple feedings.

Any thoughts on this? thanks!
 

j.w

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I wonder if those fish food companies just don't want us to use more food so they make more money? I don't have koi so maybe they are different w/feeding habits but I have gone years in the past w/o feeding my goldfish anything. They just ate what appeared in the pond for them to grab and they did fine. Then I started feeding them every now and then, maybe once a week and all was well w/that too. I just wanted them to like me :smuggrin:
 
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I do two small feedings (as much as can be eaten in about five minutes) with the pump going and have my net at the ready for those going into the skimmer...then they are thrown back to where the fish are eating...Time consuming, yes, but my favorite thing is watching my fish (and Percy, my turtle) attack the food with gusto! BTW, I am old and retired with nothing better to do:)
 
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If the water temp is above 60 F., I feed twice a day, for three minutes. That also serves as my fertilizer input for the plants in the pond and raised beds.
 
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The adults I only feed what they can eat in about one minute twice a day. I also don't drop it all in at once I just giving small pinches and after about a minutes the fish swim off. Also you can train the koi to come up to your hand and dump the food in/around there mouth.

Koi don't have a stomach and digest there food in about 4 hours and before that time is up, there looking around for other snacks algae, bugs, frog eggs, midge larva, etc. or even incompletely digested food. In mid summer a healthy koi can go 2 weeks with out feeding ( I assume that's is with out any snacks")

My personal opinion on "2-3 times a day, with enough to finish in about 5 minutes" is in a clean environment with no "snacks". Koi are far from wild fish that have may have to wait days for a meal but that's not completely lost. Although the line is blurred.

A "Sunken belly" is a sign of a disease or nutritional deficiencies looking at the fish every day as part of feeding is the best way to tell if it getting feed the right way and spotting problem early.

Fry and fingerlings are a different discussion.
 

addy1

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My fish get fed off and on. This year I have tried to feed every day, when home. trying to help eggs survive so I had a ton of fry to help fight the snakes that are inhaling my fish.

They do fine with random feedings. One big handful once a day, when home, ow nothing. All are fat and sassy. (shubunkins) no koi
 
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I have a koi (20") and a bunch of goldfish, and a bog filter. I used to feed daily, the "as much as is eaten in 5 minutes", but I had an algae bloom in July/August (I'm in Florida where it's really hot and sunny then). I started to hand-feed only the koi almost every day for a maximum of 5 minutes, but let the goldfish find their own food, which includes the most intrepid GF doing some koi-food snatching and "hand-feed me" begging (they are successful). Between less food, less sun, and relatively cooler weather, the algae cleared up, and the fish are fine.
(A second bog is in my near-future, as the first one is about 20% of the pond, and obviously not enough, given fish load and Florida sun.)
 
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The adults I only feed what they can eat in about one minute twice a day.
the feed enough that takes your fish five minutes is wayyyyyyyyyyy over feeding. a minute tops but as was mentioned i don't just dump it in if i did a couple aggressive eaters would get it all. so I'll toss almost one by one to the fish so i know they all get something and no one is left out. And i feed max once a day and often skip a day or two. let the koi graze on the rocks thats what they do
 
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I've had my 15 X 10 oval pond for over 10 years, with 5 koi and a dozen or so goldfish. My feeding procedure is: shut off the skimmer pump, then spread floating fish food pellets, once a day with enough for them to finish in about 15 minutes. They seem happy and healthy. But I wonder, since most fish food advice is to feed "2-3 times a day, with enough to finish in about 5 minutes" if I should make more of an effort to comply with this. I have to shut off the pump to feed, to avoid the skimmer sucking up the food, and I hate to do this too often. Also, sometimes i'm just not around to do multiple feedings.

Any thoughts on this? thanks!
I do once a day when temps are consistently in the sixties and all seems well.
 
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If it takes your fish 15 minutes to eat all the food i would say your food is not very nutritional because your fish should BE HUGE from that much food. And water quality would suffer.
 
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if i waited to the 60's to feed my fish they would be jumping up and slapping me with their tails when i walked by saying feed me. I start feeding when they start gathering looking for food.
 

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