Can koi and pond fish be overfed? Long Valley| NJ

We all love to venture outside to our ponds to see our fish and koi friends swimming around and begging for food.  They greet us at the edge of the pond mouths wide open waiting for the delicious food we so love to give them.  We all know they will essentially do this every time we stroll by the pond or stand next to it to admire our fish friends.  The brings up a valid question: Can your koi and pond fish be overfed?  

Just like we can overfeed ourselves, as I seem to do every winter, we can also overfeed our koi and pond fish.  Typically, we should be feeding our fish no more than 3 times per day.  Feeding time should last no longer than five minutes.  But what does this mean?  

When we throw food to the koi and pond fish (aka sharks...) they should eat the amount of food you tossed into your pond within 5 minutes.  If the fish have not eaten this food within five minutes, scoop it out.   

Over feeding pond fish and koi can ultimately have two adverse side effects:

1. Your fish will get big and may end up looking similar to tadpoles, fat in the front, skinny looking in the back.  We don't want tadpole fish!  
2. The excess food turns into, yep you guessed it fish waste.  The excess of fish waste can throw your filter out of whack causing terrible water quality.  This turbid water quality can ultimately hurt our fish friends.  

Keeping our fish healthy by not overfeeding them will in turn keep the pond healthy for our fish.  Keep in mind feeding your koi and pond fish no more than 3 times per day and only feeding them the amount of food they will consume in 5 minutes or less is a great place to start. 

Feeding your fish friends one to two times per day is not such a bad thing either, just don’t feed them too much!  

Related Links:

• It's winter, and my fish look hungry!  Can I feed them?
• When is the right time to stop feeding my pond fish or koi in New Jersey?​​

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