Koi Fish Food: Great Treats For Your Koi

Koi owners enjoy it when it comes to giving their pets treats. Seeing your Koi respond to the food you give them is truly a delightful sight, and you can do this activity with your kids (and grandkids). Although Koi feeding is a great bonding experience with your pets, you should always take some important precautions before doing so.

Remember that your Koi will eat anything you'll give them, whether it's good for them or not, so this makes it important for you as the owner to control their snack diet. Overfeeding is another issue that must be avoided, because your fish don't know when to stop eating, which may cause weight issues (especially with those non-nutritional ones) for them if not monitored.

Any owner would think that their pets deserve treats, so there are many kinds of food that you can give your fish that contain nutritional value, and those that are guaranteed not to harm them in any way.

Natural Treats: The best treat for your fish are those that can be found naturally in the pond, and these are bloodworms, earthworms and tadpoles. You can look around your pond to find them, and once you locate them, dig up these treats from the ground around your pond, or you can opt to purchase similar products found at your local pet store.

Lettuce: This treat is rich in essential vitamins and minerals, making it very healthy for your pets. You don't need to tear these into smaller pieces, as they will enjoy doing it themselves!

Prawns: These are edible crustaceans which are quite similar to shrimp, only larger. These are great for your fish as these are rich in protein. You can buy the prawns in department stores, feed stores and local pet stores. Prawns are sold as regular and frozen (if these are frozen, melt them down first before feeding it to your Koi). These are great in promoting hand feeding.

Bread: Wheat bread is one of the cheapest treats available. What you do is take a piece of it, break it up, roll it into small balls, then throw it into your pond. You should avoid all types of white bread, which have small amounts of bleach and other chemicals that can harm your fish.

Fruit: Your fish eat a wide variety of fruit. When feeding, make sure you break up the fruit into smaller pieces. Remember that most fruits have high contents of natural sugar which can be very harmful to them if given big amounts, so make sure to feed them with fruits only on special occasions.

If you feed them with treats like beans, corn and grapes, be careful as they contain outer casings which, if swallowed by your pets, can't be properly digested by them. You should first remove the outer casings before you feed them. Also, never overfeed your Koi, for feeding them a lot will interfere with their diet, which will cause more harm than good to them.