Feeding Koi fish shouldn't be difficult with the availability of information and with the advances we have nowadays. Koi fish food should contain proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. These are all essential for all animals to maintain healthy bodies so they can grow and then later on reproduce. The type of food and the quantity that you give your Koi fish should depend on their size. It makes sense to choose a food that is small enough to be eaten by the smaller fish in the pond. If you fail to take care of this, your smaller fish can die of starvation. If you like to keep small Koi with larger ones, make sure you mix large and small food so everybody can eat.
Most Koi fish food comes in two forms and these include floating and sinking food. Since Koi are bottom-feeding fish, it's better to give them sinking food. The only disadvantage with feeding them with sinking food is that you cannot enjoy seeing them eat.
Be careful when feeding sinking food because it can easily pass unnoticed especially in muddy water. Luckily, Koi can take food from the surface. You can tame your Koi so you can feed them from your hand. Special expanded foods have been made for this purpose. These foods are steamed so that an outer shell will be formed. This will protect the food particle from saturation for a period of time. Once the pond water dissolves the protective shell, the food will sink. One advantage of floating food is that the owner can see if how much food the Koi already ate.To make sure you are buying the best Koi fish food available, try to find out about the ash content. If the ash content is too high, it means that the brand you are buying is made of low-grade materials. Ash comes from scales and bones which are routine ingredients for normal fish meal. Whole fish meal is the best raw material in Koi food, it contains almost everything that a fish needs. When Koi owners say that ash is important for the fish's diet, they don't meanthat the diet should contain a high content of ash and miss the other important minerals that the fish needs. Always provide the nutrition that your Koi fish need. You will know that a Koi is healthy if the colors are brighter. While it is true that you should not feed them a diet of live foods solely, your Koi will enjoy the treat once in a while. Earthworms are one of Koi's favorite live foods and so is cockles and prawns. Although, they will eat just about anything you feed them, keep in mind that as a Koi owner, it is your responsibility to give them the right kind of food to keep them healthy.
