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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

When to stop feeding pond fish

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24 Oct 2016 21:54 #1 by nomad (pat murphy)
Wondering how others with ponds address the feeding of the pond fish in autumn and winter.I,m feeding the tetra sticks in the summer and tetra say when the water temp drops to 10c to feed wheat germ sticks.They don't say at what temp when to stop feeding the wheatgerm sticks and another query then is if the water temp drops below10c during the night and can rise up to 16 c in the daytime with this cycle of odd wheather were having predicted at the moment what is your feeding strategy,cheers..

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25 Oct 2016 12:36 #2 by ger310 (Ger .)
Alright man,this is my first year having a pond so i'm curious to know these things myself..........from the reading I've done on this so far,from about two weeks ago when the daytime temp. dropped to 12c I started feeding the Goldfish every other day........I checked the daytime temp. 3 day ago and I got just over 10c so I didn't feed them but I did today and the Goldfish were still very active so my plan is to just monitor the fish and temp. over the next week or two and if I see the fish inactive in any way or the temp. drops below 10c (seems to be the magic number!!) i'm just gonna stop feeding them altogether.......................now also a couple of weeks back I changed feeding my Sturgeon from day feeding to night feeding and after a few checks he is hoovering up his pellets while the Goldfish are inactive so i'm well pleased with that.

Ger

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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25 Oct 2016 13:34 #3 by robert (robert carter)
Hi lads , my routine is high protein food over 12 deg under this a standard food , you will see that as the temp drops the fish become less interested in food , so only feed a small amout that gets eaten straight away , under 10 deg use wheatgerm small amount once aday , at about 8 deg stop feeding the koi/goldfish . You really play it by ear depending on the fishes interest in food . I continue with water changes throughout the winter about every 2 weeks . The sturgeon gets fed sinking pellets one a day all winter . This is just my routine others may do things differently

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25 Oct 2016 18:44 #4 by nomad (pat murphy)
Hi Ger did you change over to feeding your fish wheatgerm ......

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25 Oct 2016 18:52 #5 by nomad (pat murphy)
Hi Robert thanks for that,have not done any part changes on the pond I let mother natures rainfall look after that and the fish are all healthy,i will have to reduce the number of them as they grow to keep the pond in balance :) I can see how you would need to though with the much larger bio load from such big koi that you have...

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25 Oct 2016 20:51 #6 by ger310 (Ger .)

Hi Ger did you change over to feeding your fish wheatgerm ......


Nope......I changed from a Nutrafin flake to a Fluval flake that had 15% less protein in it.

Ger

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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25 Oct 2016 21:09 #7 by robert (robert carter)
Hi ger ,why are youfeeding flake , are your fish very small , floating pellets much better higher protein and less waste

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25 Oct 2016 21:18 #8 by ger310 (Ger .)

Hi ger ,why are youfeeding flake , are your fish very small , floating pellets much better higher protein and less waste


Yip all bought as little toddlers about 3 months ago.

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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25 Oct 2016 21:41 #9 by robert (robert carter)
Great they will be a foot long next year

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26 Oct 2016 22:28 #10 by ger310 (Ger .)
Got home from work around 9-45pm tonight and I checked the temp. and it was at just under 15c.........I was getting that 6 weeks ago!!

Ger

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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27 Oct 2016 00:06 #11 by nomad (pat murphy)
Have been checking my ponds temp the last couple of weeks and its been 12c plus,thats a raised above ground timber built pond with 1in polystyrene layer beneath the liner.The fish still have a mega appitite the minute they see you near the pond their up at the surface with open mouths looking for food.Dont know whats up with the weather,maybe something to do with global warming,if this continues we,ll be feeding them all year round.

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27 Oct 2016 07:48 #12 by robert (robert carter)
Just been out to my pond the temp is 13 .8 deg c fish came up looking to be feed , put some food in and in was gone in seconds , only feeding once a day now . I believe its to get colder this weekend . Dont ever in 30 yrs of koi keeping remember feeding at the end of october , but on the other hand it was very late this year before i started feeding

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29 Oct 2016 20:29 #13 by PENEV10 (Brian Farrell)
My temp is about 13 but fish seem very passive, eating but not as frenzied as normal. Am i best off going by their behaviour rather than temp?

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29 Oct 2016 21:04 #14 by robert (robert carter)
Definatly watch the fish as much as thetemp , today was my first feed on wheatgerm , they came up alright but not the usal summer feeding frenzie, temp was 12.7 when i fed. Forecast is to get much colder in the next week

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16 Nov 2016 21:40 #15 by ger310 (Ger .)
Anybody still feeding?........temp.dropped down between 6c and 8c last week but i'm getting temp. upto 13c this week.......11c today.......mad carry on altogether!!

Ger

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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16 Nov 2016 22:22 #16 by nomad (pat murphy)
I stopped feeding about a week odd ago because there was too much fluctuation with the water temp between day and night,even though daytime temps were up during the day i,ve see 11degrees day time temps and night time temps dropped to 5 or below.Like Robert said the fish will tell you by their behavior when its time to stop,i was throwing in food and it was being thrown straight back at me,got the hint LOL ...

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16 Nov 2016 22:47 #17 by robert (robert carter)
Hi lads i stopped feeding today the forcast is to get much cooler over the next couple of days ,you need a couple of days for the fish to diejest any remaining food in their system before temps drop. Dont forget that if you have any stergoen in your pond these like the cooler water and must be feed throughout the winter . I leave both my filter and uv on all winter . Robert

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16 Nov 2016 22:53 #18 by ger310 (Ger .)

I stopped feeding about a week odd ago because there was too much fluctuation with the water temp between day and night,even though daytime temps were up during the day i,ve see 11degrees day time temps and night time temps dropped to 5 or below.Like Robert said the fish will tell you by their behavior when its time to stop,i was throwing in food and it was being thrown straight back at me,got the hint LOL ...


Yeh sorry I should of added that the fish are back being active again the last few days............not as active as in the summer but last week they were very inactive and hanging around the bottom of the pond but now there hanging near the surface again..........This pond fish keeping has me fierce confused!! lol

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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16 Nov 2016 23:04 #19 by robert (robert carter)
Hi Ger ,i wouldnt feed now with the forcast of colder weather, it sure has been a weird time fish wise ,in 30 yrs of koi keeping have never fed in november , but remember didnt start feeding till end of april

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16 Nov 2016 23:15 #20 by ger310 (Ger .)

Hi Ger ,i wouldnt feed now with the forcast of colder weather, it sure has been a weird time fish wise ,in 30 yrs of koi keeping have never fed in november , but remember didnt start feeding till end of april


Cheers dude.....I stopped feeding about a week and a half ago but seeing how active they have being again this week I was wondering to meself should I feed a small amount,but being my first year I thought best to ask what others are doing before giving them some.......i'll keep them hungry so!!

I started night feeding my Sturgeon about a month ago and he is hoovering up his pellets so all good over the winter months I hope.

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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17 Nov 2016 09:14 #21 by robert (robert carter)
Good point about night feeding the sturgeon , it seems to work well in my experience

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21 Nov 2016 23:30 #22 by Madalina83 (Madalina Puscasu)
I know this is out of topic and I'm sorry for that, but is anyone around here big-hearted enough to give a home to a blind goldfish? :(
A friend of mine has it and wants to take it to the pet shop, but the poor guy will die cause they don't feed them there....

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22 Nov 2016 12:24 #23 by robert (robert carter)
hi ,this is a difficult problem , this fish in a tank /pond that has other fish in will struggle to get food . A pet shop will not take in a fish that they cant sell , but the fish shops do feed the fish they have in stock . This fish would need to be housed in a tank by it self in order to be sure its getting food . What make you think its blind ?

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22 Nov 2016 14:35 #24 by Madalina83 (Madalina Puscasu)
His eyes are red, you can see inside his head. And he never comes up when is feeding time, he stays at the bottom and search for food through the gravel. Poor guy! I cannot take hi, I already have 2 big goldies

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22 Nov 2016 15:36 #25 by robert (robert carter)
Sorry but i think this guy needs to be put out of his misery

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22 Nov 2016 22:13 #26 by Madalina83 (Madalina Puscasu)

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09 Dec 2016 11:13 #27 by FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
Came out this morning, all fish were swarming at the top and when I checked the temp it was at 12, threw in some flake and they went bizerk!!

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09 Dec 2016 11:15 #28 by robert (robert carter)
My water temp was 13 this morning have fed a small amount of wheatgerm last 3 mornings and they went crazy

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09 Dec 2016 11:21 #29 by FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
Just when we thought everything was put to bed for the winter.....!

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