Looking for a good but reasonably priced koi food

[WhiteNoise]

Hello!

I've been feeding my Koi Kaytee brand Koi food which was recommended to me by my local pet store. I've seen loads of different brands and I'm wondering if the food I'm feeding them is good or not? I'm sure it's fine but is there something better that doesn't break the bank?

Thanks!

 

[Waterbug]

That's a tricky one. The first thing I look at is to try and figure out what they mean by "crude protein". There was a time when melamine was added to pet foods to increase the crude protein. Melamine is used to make plastic type stuff, it sure isn't a food. But the way the crude protein is determined means non-food or poor food items can be added to let's say fool people.

So when comparing if fish meal or fish type stuff is the first ingredient I expect to pay more than if grains and animal proteins are list first.

Then there a game they play, like Keytee does. Here's the start of their ingredient list.

Fish Meal, Ground Corn, Dehulled Soybean Meal, Wheat Flour, Corn Gluten Meal, Fish Oil, Wheat Germ Meal,...

Isn't ground corn and corn gluten meal basically the same thing? Yep. But together it probably means there's more corn than fish meal. They do the same for wheat. So my guess is listing fish meal first isn't actually true by what I care about. But fish meal is in the running, so not exactly "bad" either..

But that's just me not wanting to pay more than it's worth. I don't have a problem with using less expensive food.

I've fed trout chow/catfish chow before, not great food, high fat, but it's cheap. Guess who else eats a high fat diet? Me. But I've never been a heavy feeder or fish, 3-4 times a week. If I was feeding several times a day, or had an auto feeder, or wanted show fish, then a high fat food would be a bigger issue.

 

[addy1]

I have read that the fish can't digest corn meal or corn, so I try to make sure the food I use has no corn or corn is the least ingredient listed. Sort of like my pup, corn comes out whole, so if fish are the same way you are just adding a lot of unused food product to your pond water.

 

[WhiteNoise]

So what brand food should I be looking for? What do you feed your koi? I have no issues changing and if that means spending a little more for a better food I don't mind.

I have the Kaytee stuff which I've been using for two years and I also have trout food that I use once in awhile.

 

[Troutredds]

Study ingredient statements. Hikari makes some great food. We feed our trout Hikari Carnivore pellets. It's a high protein food (47%) with fish meal and krill meal as the first two ingredients. They also have a wide variety of koi foods - as you'd suspect though, the higher end stuff is pricy.

 

[Waterbug]

It is an old (older than me) myth mainly from fishermen that carp can't digest corn which gets amped up to corn will kill fish to sound better. I hadn't personally seen the myth transferred to Koi and Goldfish until today, but I assume it is indeed a common myth for Koi and Goldfish too. Myths move much faster than fact that is for sure.

The myth, like all good myths, is based in fact. I see corn in my puppy's poo therefore dogs must not be able to digest corn therefore corn is bad for dogs therefore if you feed your dog food with lots of corn your dog will starve to death and die. Birth of a myth.

Corn is kind of interesting because another animal that can't digest corn is humans. Just like the myths for other animals this isn't really true. We, and other animals, can digest parts of corn, some parts we can't very well. But even the parts we can't digest are important for health because it adds fiber to our diet and that's a good thing.

We're clever little creatures (a few anyways) and have developed a few ways to get more food value out of corn. The main way is cooking. Heat alone will make more food value available. Grinding breaks down cellulose better than even chewing improving food value greatly. Soaking and cooking in an alkaline solution greatly improves food value. That little trick alone may have been responsible for the Mayan civilization. And alkaline processing is still widely used today.

So yes, feeding Koi only raw corn is not a great food. But processed corn is a much improved food source.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

Check out New Life Spectrum foods. They make several different varieties. I but it for all my fish although I do not have koi.