Hi,
A few observations on Big Fish Koi Food posted on this forum -
The claim "containing the immune amylose" is very confusing. Amylose is one of the two components of starch! The other being amylopectin. There is absolutely no link between immunity and starch.
"Multiple immunity enforced materials" - looking at the ingredients there is nothing in there that will increase the immunity. On the question of immune enhancing things in koi foods - the very first question you must ask yourselves as koi keepers is why do you need to enhance the immune system of your koi if they are healthy? Secondly, by adding immune system boosting things continually the immune system will adapt to them (which is what an immune system does - it adapts to different challenges through out an organism’s life) - and they will become useless after a time.
The immune system is the front line of defence for the animal. It is part and parcle of normal living.
If any food anywhere in the world could prevent KHV the manufactures would be very, very wealthy. It would save the koi industry many hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s much like saying that humans should eat food brand xyz and you will become immune to the flu virus.
The ingredients look fine. Fish meal - good: wheat germ meal - OK: soya meal - good: wheat flour - good: corn meal (mielie meal) - good.
The special ingredients "natural herbal" - does not tell us anything. "krill meal" - as a manufacture of koi food I can tell you that krill meal is very expensive and not always available. Further the nutritional things found in krill meal can be sourced from other raw materials at 20% of the price. If krill is used it is probably used in very small amounts to save costs.
The age of the food is unknown. But believe me imported foods - all of them - are many months old before they get on the retail shelves.
Protein at 32% is way too low (in my opinion): Fat at 5% is good: Fibre at 5% is a little high: Ash at 16% is way too high: Moisture is the same as all koi foods.
The price at R120 per 850g is horrific. That’s R140 per kilo or R280.00 per 2kg. Hikari Gold at R340 per 2kg is far better from a nutritional point of view. You will get more nutrition to your koi out of Shogun at around R40 - 45 per kilo (retail).
Hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Chris