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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Koi - Winter Feeding

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04 Nov 2012 13:14 #1 by JamesG (James Gargan)
I'm heading into my second winter as a Koi Keeper (killer!!) and I'm not that confident after loosing half my fish last year! Well I only had four and lost two. I believe this was because I feed them too far into the winter. Now I have nine fish and 4 of them are 10-12 inches, so I really don't want to lose them. The water temperature has hoovered around 9C or 10C recently and now it is 8C. I've been feeding them wheatgerm for the past few weeks. The fish are still reasonably active and come to be feed when I approach the pond.

Should I completely stop feeding now until next Spring?

Should I feed on warmer days?

All advice greatly appreciated.

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04 Nov 2012 13:23 #2 by JohnH (John)
Replied by JohnH (John) on topic Koi - Winter Feeding
James,
The general 'rule-of-thumb' for Carp (including Goldfish) is that once the water (and therefore the fish also) goes down below 10deg the fish cannot properly digest what they consume and so it all 'goes in one end and comes out the other'.
Wheatgerm is recommended for feeding on warmer days in the winter, but in all honesty I cannot see the point myself - apart from your being able to see them and therefore being certain they're still there!

A short answer, but doubtless others will be able to elaborate on this during the course of the day.

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


ITFS member.



It's a long way to Tipperary.

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04 Nov 2012 13:26 #3 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Koi - Winter Feeding
Outdoor Fish become very sedintary after the temperatures drop, Feeding for them becomes more of a habit than a necessity. Reduce when temperatures are between 5-10 as their metabolism will have reduced and food in the gut will swell and decay causing problems. Below 5-6 stop altogether until the return of warmer temps in Spring. If you have Ice on your pond, make a hole with a stream of hot water from a Kettle, then, use a pump to reduce the water level by an inch or two. This will allow a warmer area of Air to exist at the top and will also allow toxic fumes from decaying material on the bottom to escape, the water below the layer of Ice should remain unfrozen.

Kev.

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04 Nov 2012 13:34 #4 by wylam (Stuart Sexton)
Yeah i stop feeding mine once the temp. drops below 10 degree's.It does say on the food that you can feed down as low as 5 deg. but i'm not too confident of that.the most important thing about the winter is ice, so make sure to follow exactly what kev said above.Do not hammer or try and break the ice this will stress out the fish.Hot water or even pot of hot water and just rest it on top of the ice until it melts all the way through.

Stuart.

Multi tasking: Screwing up more than one thing at a time.

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