How often should you feed koi?

[BennyLava]

I feed mine 2 times a day, and both times they act like they are starving to death. I feed once in the morning, and once in the evening. But I am pretty sure that I am feeding them enough, because They will eat almost all of it, then stop eating it.

And a small amount will be left floating, maybe 5-10 pellets. Which they then proceed to eat over the next 30 minutes, much more lazily and slowly. So I guess they are not starving anymore by that time.

But is it possible to over feed them? Will they keep on eating and eating until they hurt themselves? Or will it just make the pond nasty because there is too much uneaten fish food? I want to grow my fish as fast as possible. Right now the biggest one is maybe 10 inches. And most of them are about 3 inches. But I don't want to hurt them in some way by feeding them too much. What would you recommend?

 

[koikeepr]

I feed 3x per day, as much as they eat in a 5 minute time frame. In the summer, they get extra hungry as they are expending a lot of energy.

 

[BennyLava]

So you can't really hurt them by overfeeding them? I mean directly. Not indirectly, by harming the water quality.

 

[koikeepr]

Well, I think it is possbile to directly hurt them, yes. Like any other captured creature, koi do get fat and you will shorten the life of such a fish. I've seen plenty of porker koi who are overfed.

And, correct, indirectly you are polluting your water with excess food and the excess poop that will come out of that.

 

[DoDad]

I feed mine 4 times a day after the pond reaches 75 degrees. The veggies and watermelon don't count.

 

[koikeepr]

LOL! I confess I don't count the snack of peas either!

 

[BennyLava]

Just canned peas? There is a lot of sodium in those.

 

[koikeepr]

I use really good quality peas, I buy those silly french baby ones at costco. No real sodium. LOL! They go craaaaaaaaaazy over 'em!