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catfish food for koi :-)
The average age of wild carp live in those european rivers is brief indeed. There is
a difference between just getting enough and thriving. Everything I have read says koi need protein to build muscles and fat for energy. That they cannot digest complex carbohydrates. Koi teeth are not made for thorough mastication of foods, nor do they secrete digestive juices into their mouth while they chew. Our land based adaptations help us start pre-digesting our food so the nutrients can be extracted before the food mass exits our body. Koi dont have a true stomach, they have a pyloric ceca which contains digestive enzymes and their liver and pancreas secrete enzymes right into the intestines. Land based animals like us produce acids that start the breakdown complex and land based foods in the large stomach. Everything koi have evolved to eat is wet with little to no cellulose. They have evolved to be a perpetual eating machine. They eat small amounts of low fiber, nutrient rich foods all day long, not big chunks of dry food with lots of fiber/filler. Fiber does not help them digest out the protein and fats they need from the mass of food moving through their intestines in a large bolus. Koi are adapted to digesting simple fats, the kind that go rancid very fast if food is sitting around in a warehouse. But corn oil and vegetable oils are typically used in cheap fish farm foods because they are cheap and dont go rancid at room temp. Manufacturers of food for farmers that grow food fish (catfish) have found ways of pre-digesting the complex carbohydrates and fats so they are available to put size and bulk on catfish quickly. People do report fish fed on corn develop fatty livers. I dont know if this is directly related to the corn in the food, or the fact that the food could be rancid anyway and rancid oils will cause fatty liver disease. In any case, food fish are processed and in the stores before any problems show up. OTOH, Jo Ann, who routinely does necropsies on GF and koi says she has never found fatty deposits in fish fed on high protein, high fat diets. Ingrid "Phyllis and Jim Hurley" wrote: I suspect that carp in european rivers were pretty flexible in their feeding habits and that it may have been hard for them to get the high protein diets we feed...don't know, just a guess. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List http://puregold.aquaria.net/ www.drsolo.com Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the endorsements or recommendations I make. |
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