How to determine amount of food for small pond

[slick]

I have never fed my koi what ever they can eat in 3 mins

I have my doubts about my wife ,grandkids or friends

lol DrCase i know where you are coming from with that one wife in back garden and a hand full of food bang gone the feeding plan

 

[Dave 54]

I think Slick will agree with this "you get to know your koi"when to feed them and exactly how much , I always try to split feed my koi making sure that the smaller koi get their lons share as well as th larger koi getting theirs one handful goes to one side of the pond one to the other slightly after the frst feed.
When you've owned one for 28 years you must be doing something right
The number of times we feed varies from the what we feed in the spring to what we feed in the summer months including the wifes odd handful

Dave

 

[slick]

it a feel thing with large koi, when you know you just know, with the sinking food which you can feed any fish, been told it helps reduce smaller fish gulping air and possibility of swim balder problems most fish do enjoy a good rummage through the pond bottom, all i do is look in the vortex no food in vortex all good,, food in vortex, a big sign of over feeding time to cut back

 

[DrCase]

Once I start feeding my koi they get at least 3 meals a day.
My little fry get fed a lot more than that.
I went through 40 lb of food last year

 

[ralphjramirez]

My pond is about 540 gallons and is exceptionally clean, no algae problems. I have 4 Koi about 12-14 inches in size and 16 much smaller shubunkins. Here in California we are having another drought year and the weather is very warm, spring weather. The fish seem to gulp the food down within 8-10 minutes but still seem hungry. How do I determine how much I should feed them or how to recognize over-feeding. I am currently feeding them TetraPond Koi Vibrance floating sticks and the fish love them.

Regards..........Ralph

Wow, so many great replies. I am sorry I hadn't responded sooner as I was expecting an email as another non-pond forum does. Sounds like my feeding does follow some suggestions and comments made. When I feed I spread the food around so that all the fish get food, the Koi of course are big eaters but I see that they do eat some algae along the walls of the pond, not a lot there but they do find some. I have watched several times to see how long the food lasts and it varies to between 5-8 minutes. When the weather is real warm and they are real active I do feed them more. I do have a testing kit for the water but only use about every 2-3 months or when I observe obvious water problems. I have a very good filtration system, a lot of water movement. I use a Laguna Pressure Flo 700 with a uv filter. Attached to my pump is a pre-filter that does the heavy cleaning. This I clean about every 2-4 weeks and the Laguna every 6-8 weeks. I have attached a photo of my pond.

Thanks again everyone for your comments/suggestions and again I am sorry for my delay in responding.

Regards..........Ralph

 

[slick]

Sounds good I tast my water every week, a small problem is easier to deal with compared with a 2 month festering problem,
I also feed my koi in the same spot at the same time nothing better than to see my
Koi queuing up to great me for feeding time

 

[addy1]

Nice looking pond.

My goldfish get a hand full or two of food every few days or so, or when I remember. They do great, there are a lot of other things to snack on, plants, bugs, etc.