What do you feed baby koi fish

What Is The Best Food For Baby Koi? – Pond heaven

Baby koi fish are beautiful little creatures that grow very quickly. This means you need to ensure that their food contains nutrients to support this fast growth. There are a few different foods you can feed your baby Koi fish, but what is the best food for your baby koi?

When baby Koi fish are 24 hours old, you can feed them liquid or suspended particle food. Once the fish are a little older, you can add some small brine shrimp, egg yolk paste, crushed adult Koi pellets, some daphnia, then some powdered krill and fish flakes when they are two weeks old.

How do you feed baby Koi fish? How many times a day should baby Koi fish eat? Can you make your own egg yolk paste? Is there anything baby Koi fish should not eat? Let’s find out!

What Is The Best Food For Your Baby Koi?

Baby koi fish are beautiful little things that can grow quickly and have stunning, vibrant colors, often even outshining the adult Koi fish in appearance. When you are breeding your koi fish, there are a few precautions you need to take to ensure the babies are safe and healthy.

You need to ensure they are kept safely away from predator fish and their parents as the adult Koi fish tend to eat their own young. However, when the baby Koi fish hatch and are safe from outside threats, these little ones can be pretty hardy.

Once the baby Koi fish have hatched, they are pretty easy to care for, but when caring for them, the most important thing you need to get right to ensure your baby koi are healthy is the food you give them. You need to provide them with food that will support their fast growth, and that’s not too big for them.

Let’s have a look at what you should feed your baby Koi fish during different stages of their development to make sure they grow correctly and don’t develop any problems.

Birth To One Month Old

When koi fish are born, they have a yolk. This yolk will sustain the baby Koi fish for 24 hours after hatching. After the first 24 hours of hatching, you will need to feed your baby Koi fish.

You need to remember that these koi fish babies are tiny and, therefore, they have small mouths that you will need to accommodate when looking for food for them. These little fish also have specific nutritional requirements to help them grow strong and healthy.

So, you need to ensure that the food you give them is full of the nutrients they need. The food you give your baby koi needs to be high in fat and proteins, as they grow very quickly, and these nutrients support this growth better.

For your baby Koi fish’s first few days, you can use a suspended-partial or liquid food for your babies. This food is generally some form of larvae suspended in a fluid. This food is usually used for baby Koi as they can easily eat it, and it’s packed full of fats and proteins.

You could also go for a powdered food option for these first feeds of your baby Koi fish. You can buy specially made powdered food for baby Koi fish, or you can buy a high-quality adult Koi fish food and grind it into a powder yourself.

You can also feed your baby koi some live food, which can be brought as eggs and hatched at your home to ensure they are small enough for the baby koi to eat. Here is what to feed your baby koi for the first month of their lives:

Twenty-four hours after they have hatched, feed them liquid foods or suspended-particle food. Now would be the perfect time to hatch your live food eggs if you want to use them.
On days 2 and 3, you can increase the portion sizes of their meals, and you can add a dollop of newborn brine shrimp for the baby koi to eat, but only do this once per day.
On days 4 and 5, you can start feeding them a quarter cup of egg yolk paste once a day, along with their usual food. A recipe to make your own egg yolk paste is further on in this article.
Then on days 6 and 7, you can add some powdered food to your baby koi’s diet
In the second week of their lives, you can start feeding them some crushed adult Koi pellets and some daphnia.
By the end of the second week, stop feeding them the liquid foods and the egg paste, and switch to some good-quality powdered krill and fish flakes. Continue feeding your baby koi the baby brine shrimp along with the flakes for added protein and the daphnia.

Two Months Old

The two-month mark for your baby Koi fish is a big milestone as you can finally turn on the tank’s filter as your baby koi are now big enough to swim against the pull of the filter’s current. When your baby Koi fish have reached this milestone, they should be about 1 or 2 inches in length now.

You may find that some of your baby Koi fish are a bit more robust than the others, and they might hog all the food during your feedings. You need to remove these baby Koi and place them in a separate tank to allow the other baby koi to feed better.

Then for the second month in your baby Koi fishes life, you can feed them the following:

Frozen daphnia
Powdered baby koi fish flakes
Crushed adult Koi fish pellets
Baby koi sinking pellets, but only once a day
Frozen brine shrimp blocks; get the ones with the adult shrimp.

Three Months Old

When your baby Koi fish have reached three months, you can now drop one feeding time as they won’t need to eat as often. You need to ensure they eat three times a day and allow them to eat all they can eat in a 5-minute window.

When your baby koi reach three months old, you need to change their diet a little bit once again. When they are this old, you still need to feed them the same pellet foods as in their second month of life, but you will now only provide them the frozen daphnia once a day.

The rest of the food you give them will be the same as their two-month mark. When the third month is up, your baby Koi fish should now measure about 3 to 4 inches in length. Once this month I up, you can start feeding your baby koi as you would your adult Koi fish.

How To Feed Baby Koi Fish

If you are a beginner Koi fish breeder, then you may be wondering how to feed your baby Koi fish. Well, in the first month of their lives, the baby Koi fish will be extremely small, so you will have to feed them by throwing their food into their water.

There is no other way to feed them during this time as you will be using liquid or suspended-particle food as they are too small to eat anything else. When your baby Koi fish start to grow and begin to eat the frozen pellets and food, you can employ one of two feeding methods.

These are hand feeding your baby Koi fish or just throwing the food into their tanks and watching to ensure they all get a chance to eat.

It is mostly recommended to do a mixture of both these feeding types, though, as some of your baby Koi fish may be more skittish than others and will not feed from your hand.

So, you can hand feed the more adventurous baby Koi fish and then throw food in for the shy baby Koi fish to ensure they don’t starve.

How Many Times A Day Should Baby Koi Fish Be Fed?

Baby koi fish are just like many other animals on the planet in the way that the younger they are, there more often they need to eat as they are still trying to grow into strong and healthy adults.

Koi fish grow fairly quickly, and they need to be fed often enough to sustain their fast growth, or they may develop some disabilities later affecting how they swim.

So, after 24 hours of your baby Koi hatching, you need to feed them at least four times per day, which can be challenging for some people to do, but this supports their growth well.

Then when your baby Koi fish reach three months old, you can cut this down to four times a day, as your baby Koi fish are not going to be growing as fast as they did in their first two months.

It’s recommended to feed your baby Koi fish three times a day until they are four months old, and then feed them as frequently as you do your adult Koi fish.

How Much Should You Feed Baby Koi Fish?

When your baby Koi fish are under one month old, you will need to experiment with the amount of food your particular baby Koi fish need to eat as they are all different. You need to focus on fine-tuning the amount to ensure you don’t overfeed them at a young age.

Unfortunately, there is no exact amount that you should be feeding your baby Koi fish. You will need to feed them little by little to gauge the amount they need to grow strong and healthy.

If you are struggling with this, you should speak to a professional and have them look at your baby Koi fish. They will be able to help you decide on the perfect amount of food for your baby Koi fish.

How To Make Egg Yolk Paste At Home For Baby Koi

As I mentioned earlier, you can make your own egg yolk paste to feed your baby Koi fish while still developing. The egg yolk paste ensures that your baby Koi fish receive all the protein that their growing bodies require.

Feeding your baby Koi fish egg yolk paste needs to be done on a supplementary basis, and you should not only feed your baby Koi fish egg yolk paste and nothing else, as your baby koi do require other nutrients as well. Let’s go through how you can make your own egg yolk paste.

Ingredients

To make your home-made egg yolk paste for your baby Koi fish, you will require a few ingredients and some equipment, which include:

Purified water
Three hard-boiled eggs
A fork
A sharp knife
A bowl
A cup
A plastic squeezy bottle

Method

When you have collected all the needed tools and ingredients and boiled your eggs, you can now make your egg yolk paste for your baby Koi fish. Follow the steps below to start.

Step 1 – carefully peel the shell off all three hard-boiled eggs.

Step 2 – cut the hard-boiled eggs into halves and carefully scoop out the egg yolks, ensuring you get as much egg white off the yolk as possible.

Step 3 – Place the egg yolks into the bowl and crush them with the fork.

Step 4 – pour one and a half cups of purified water into the crushed egg yolks.

Step 5 – carefully pour the egg yolk mixture into the plastic squeezy bottle.

Step 6 – When you need to feed your baby Koi fish, squeeze a small amount of the egg yolk mixture onto the surface of the water.

When you are feeding your baby Koi fish the egg yolk paste, ensure you feed them little bits at a time, and not more than they can eat within five minutes. The excess egg yolk mixture will then mix with the water in the tank and spoil the water.

What Should Baby Koi Fish Not Eat?

When your koi fish are babies, there are a few foods you should never feed them; even though some people suggest the foods below, don’t ever feed them to your baby Koi fish. Some food below should not be provided to adult Koi fish either as they can be toxic. These foods are:

Dry or wet cat and dog foods
Cereals
Any foods for small animals like gerbils, rabbits, and rats, should be avoided
Please do not feed them insects you catch in the wild
Grains of any kind
White bread
Corn
Peas

Conclusion

Baby koi fish are relatively easy to feed, and it’s generally a simple process. You can buy commercially made baby koi fish food, or you can make your own, but whatever you choose to do, ensure you feed them the correct portions and as frequently as you can to help them grow strong and healthy. Good luck with your baby Koi fish!

Koi Fish Feeding Tips & Recommendations For Healthy Koi — Koi Story

/koi-feeding-dinners-ready -> /koi-fish-feeding 301

The best part about raising koi fish is feeding them! Seeing them come to the surface and even eating from the palm of your hand is the best bonding experience between growing koi fish and their owners. And while it may be fun to watch your fish friends flop over one another to get a glimpse of you, koi feeding needs to be regulated and monitored to ensure the health and wellbeing of your koi.

What should you feed your koi fish?

It depends on their age, size and the season. And then of course, there’s always how much you’re willing to spend to get the good stuff.

Generally, you can feed koi anything you can feed goldfish. Both fish species are technically carp and will eat just about anything organic–koi food, vegetables, krill and plankton, breakfast cereal, dead leaves. You name it. They’ll eat it.

If you’re buying koi food, things are always cheaper when you buy in bulk. Some formulas boast color enhancing properties while others are fortified with vitamins to promote good immunity in your koi fish. Beyond that, it’s often matter of preference.

It's said that koi have a memory of around three minutes, yet they can learn to recognize their feeders. Talk about selective memory! We've assembled ten great tips to help you become a become your koi's favorite face, even if they forget your name.

10 KOI FISH FEEDING TIPS FOR GROWING KOI

Feed your fish up to four times per day. Only feed them as much as they can eat in about a five minute period.
Koi fish eat just about anything, from small bugs and insects, to plants and algae at the bottom of the fish pond, to store-bought koi fish food.
Koi will even eat people food. They love cereal, lettuce, shrimp, rice, peas, watermelon... pretty much anything we like, koi fish consider food.
Avoid feeding your koi fish before storms. Fish need more oxygen when digesting food. When it rains, oxygen levels in the air dip down, so you can see why it's a bad koi fish feeding time.
Your growing koi will remember you as their feeder after only a short amount of time. Consistently feed them and they will begin to greet you as you approach the pond.
Your smaller koi fish will need to eat flake or small koi food. Larger koi fish prefer pebble food
Your koi fish prefer more carbohydrate-rich foods early in the spring and late in the fall while protein is better in early summer when mating is in the air (er, pond).
Koi fish feeding time is fun. Enjoy your special time with your beloved growing koi!
Koi fish can go all winter without eating because their metabolism slows to a crawl
Koi fish feeding is not recommended if your pump breaks because your koi need oxygen to digest their food.

TYPES OF koi FOOD

There are a few different kinds of food you can be feeding your koi: fresh foods, freeze-dried foods, and prepared foods. Prepared pellets are the most convenient because they are created to meet all of the nutritional needs of koi fish, but fresh and freeze-dried foods can be added as a supplement.

When it comes to prepared foods, they vary in shape and size. They also come in floating or sinking varieties. Floating pellets are recommended because they let you see if you’re overfeeding your fish. You also get to watch your koi come to the surface to feed – one of the joys of koi ownership!

As for fresh and freeze-dried foods, they vary from blood worms, brine shrimp, clams, and chopped vegetables. All are acceptable for supplemental feeding.

KOI FEEDING

When feeding your koi, disperse small amounts of food at a time. Watch as your koi come up to eat the food. Only feed your koi as much as they can eat in five minute sessions. Feed your koi three times a day: early morning, early afternoon, and late afternoon. Stick to this schedule to avoid overfeeding.

Overfeeding not only harms the health of your koi, but also pollutes their water. Koi will overeat when overfed, so make sure you stick to the 5-minute feeding schedule. If any extra food remains after twenty minutes, clean it out of the tank.

Your koi fish will gradually become more and more comfortable with you as you feed them everyday. Make sure you stick around when feeding them so they can see you. This will build the trust between fish and owner. Soon, they will be practically leaping out of the water to feed from your hand!

SEASONAL DINING

Did you know that your koi have different nutritional needs throughout the year? This is because they are a cold-blooded animal: they’re affected by their water temperatures. A koi’s metabolic rate is much faster in warmer temperatures than in colder ones. In fact, when water temperatures drop below 50˚ F (10˚ C), koi do not need to be fed at all if they are in healthy condition; they live off their own body fat. The temperature that is recommended for best growth is between 73˚ F and 86˚ F.

While there are some specific nutritional needs that should be met when feeding koi, these vary throughout the year. Start feeding your koi again once the water temperatures reach 60˚ F (15. 5˚ C). Ease them back into an eating regimen by serving small portions. When koi begin to eat again in the spring, they need foods that are easily digestible, such as wheat germ, rice, or vegetable protein.

As temperatures warm up, koi need food that will support their growth and development. Feed them more protein and lipids during the summer. Come fall, return their feeding to the spring’s regime: more easily digestible foods.

Check Out KOI Story’s FOOD & Nutrition recommendations

These are our favorite koi foods whether you're budget-conscious or looking to spoil your koi. (Note: We get a a small commission for any sales resulting from clicks on the products seen here. Thank you for checking out our product recommendations!)

Blue Ridge COLOR-RICH Big BAG

If you want to buy the same food pellet that America’s leading koi breeders use in bulk at a fraction of the price, then look no further. Blue Ridge fish food pellets feature a balanced diet and color-rich formula.

Danichi All-Season Koi Food

Danichi’s all-season koi fish food is enhanced with a special coating of vitamins and minerals and an easily assimilated protein that keep your fish healthy and happy all year long, but especially in colder months.

Hikari Staple Daily Koi Food

Rarely does a product get all 5-star reviews on Amazon, but Hikari’s Stable blend is an economical daily diet for koi and other pond fishes. It’s especially high in vitamin C to promote stress/disease resistance.

API Koi/Pond Fish Food

API Fish Food for koi and goldfish round our our top four koi fish food recommendations. On the more economical side of the higher-end foods, API is high in protein to help fish produce less ammonia waste.

Tetra Pond Koi Vibrance

The ever-popular Tetra koi fish food line is perhaps the most well-known brand because it’s available in most retail outlets. While it’s a great option, it can often cost more than 2-4x the competing brand listed above.

Tetra Pond Koi Food Sticks

Sometimes you want pellets, but sometimes it’s fun to mix it up and give your koi fish their food in stick format instead. Packed with all of the same nutrition you’d expect in pellets but just in a different shape for funsies.

Tetra Spring & Fall Diet

This special diet is ideal for colder months in the spring and fall when your koi fish’s bodies and digestive systems slow down. These easy-to-digest sticks include wheat germ and taste great (so our fish tell us).

Tetra Pond Color & Vitality

This premium blend of three separate foods: Pond Sticks, Koi Vibrance, and Spring & Fall Diet, which helps enhance color and vitality in your koi and ornamental goldfish. Ideal for all seasons and contains wheat germ.

Koi/Goldfish Color Flakes

Do you have baby koi fish that need to eat but can’t fit their mouths around pellets or sticks? Try Tetra Pond’s flakes instead. This clear-water formula won’t cloud water, is easy to digest, and promotes ideal koi growth.

Fluker’s Freeze-Dried Shrimp

Koi fish eat just about anything they can get into their mouths. That said, freeze-dried shrimp might just be one of their favorites. Fluker’s brand is high in protein and amino acids and make the perfect treat for your koi.

Tetra Pond Jumbo Krill

Tetra’s blend of jumbo krill packs a protein, fat, roughage, and vitamin E-rich punch that your koi fish will love. Plus, shrimp are high in carotenoids, which promote the natural pink and orange colors in your koi fish.

Eco Labs Summer Koi Food

Eco Labs makes a blend of koi fish food that is perfect for summer months. This pescaterian blend of fish, fruits and greens promises to be rich in vitamin C, won’t cloud water, and can be fed up to four times per day.

broodstock and fry photo, caring for roe fry koi feeding lighting disease treatment, parasitic infections costiasis spherosporosis diphyllobothriasis, koi breeding

What we often do not pay attention to is the beginning of spawning. At this time it is essential to make sure that the fish are healthy and free of parasites. Also, don't forget to check the belly of the fish, as damage to the anal fin and belly can be easily missed.

Koi need a proper diet during this period , namely more protein, so that the reproductive function works correctly. Fats are no less important, they are deposited in the liver. Fats are needed by females for caviar production and by males, as they spend a lot of energy. Therefore, you need to provide your fish with a balanced diet of 8% fat (minimum) and 35-40% protein. If all of the above is not provided, which may not spawn well, the amount of caviar will be much smaller and of lower quality.

Caring for eggs and fry

After the eggs are swept away, they must be fertilized within 30-60 seconds (the sperm remains viable for about 2 minutes). Often up to 40% of the eggs may not be fertilized, to reduce this figure try to plant at least 2 males with each female.

Further in the process of maturation, the eggs absorb water and inflate, this process is called hardening. This is provided by osmosis - water penetrating a relatively concentrated egg from a dilute environment.

In very hard water, with a high level of dissolved salts (some spring waters), the difference between the amount of minerals dissolved in the water and the substances in the eggs may cause the osmosis process to not start and the eggs not to harden.

Some types of parasitic infections

Bone blight (Ichthyobodo necator) - affects eggs and hatched larvae. An overcrowded reservoir and high temperatures can cause an outbreak of a disease that usually ends in high mortality among fry.

Spherosporosis caused by the parasite Sphaerospora renicola causes inflammation of the swim bladder. Infected fry lose their appetite, problems with orientation appear, and at elevated temperatures of 25-30 ° C, mortality increases.

Related article Koi problems that can occur in summer

If koi survive the season, certain signs may appear, such as anemia (pale gills), enlargement of the renal pelvis. Secondary diseases of the swim bladder are as common as inflammation of the swim bladder and thickening of its walls.

Diphyllobothriasis in koi fry is caused by Bothriocephalus cestodes. The fry are growing, their diet is also changing, now it includes small crustaceans such as daphnia.

Treatment: Praziquantel preparation at a concentration of 10 mg/l, bath for 3 hours at a temperature of 22°C.

Translation from English: Zooclub portal (www.zooclub.ru)
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Tags: fish, aquarium fish breeding, fish diseases, koi

needs, breeding and care, water volume for koi, temperature for koi carp, oxygen, nutrition, water filtration, plants for the pond, protection from predators Photo

the popularity of koi. The benefits of a koi pond are amazing. A properly designed and set up koi pond will greatly enhance your yard and bring a touch of style wherever it is located. The size, color and graceful swimming of the koi create a beautiful, dramatic and peaceful effect at the same time.

Koi are hardy and easy to raise. However, in order to keep them healthy and provide koi and yourself with the pleasure of company, you need to think very carefully about your pond. Not every pond is suitable for this. And only after you have a suitable reservoir, everything is set up and done, you can choose and purchase koi.

Lots of water. One of the keys to the koi's popularity lies in its growth rate and adult size. In the first year, koi can grow up to 20 cm, and in the second year by another 30-40 cm. Under the right conditions - the ideal size of the reservoir, the quality of water and food, koi grow up to 90 cm and weigh about 18 kg. Given the limited size of domestic and corporate water bodies, which still rarely grow to such a size. The usual size of koi is about 50 cm.