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In the ordinary course of events pond fishes
do not require extra food. Usually, however,
a pond is called upon to support a slightly
excessive fish population with the result that
natural foods are exhausted. At breeding
time, too, unless they receive additional food,
the eggs will be eaten.
Normally, the mature pond is rich in food
matter, especially if daphnae, gammarus, etc.,
have been allowed to breed in the shallows.
Mosquito and other insect larvae, to say
nothing of their eggs and the insects themselves, add to the commissariat. The eggs
and young of snails and mussels and certain
plants, duckweed for example, are eaten
avidly. Then there are a number of aquatic
worms and Rotifers (otherwise ' Wheel animal-
cules ') that provide sustenance besides the
infusoria already mentioned. Diatoms and
desmids, minute single-celled plants, are retained by the fish's gill-rakers, and swallowed.
Few natural foods, however, are available
between, say, November and March. Now a
fish is not particularly interested in food during
the cold months, it is sleepy and inactive.
Moreover, nearly all its energies are confined
to developing the reproductive system ready
for breeding in Spring. Fat stored in the
tissues is devoted to maintaining the fish at
this time.
Consequently extra feeding is necessary in
late Autumn to prepare the fish for the rigours
of the Winter, also in early Spring, when
natural foods have yet to appear, and then,
of course, the fish is really hungry.
If a system of daphnae raising is used, the
problem of extra feeding is simplified. Still,
a fish, especially in an aquarium, likes variety ;
it grows faster and seems generally to be in
better health on a mixed diet.
It may be, though, that a supply of natural
food is not available and in this case the
aquarist must fall back on artificial foods,
and one cannot go far wrong if one or other
of the foods advertised by reliable firms is
used. They are sold usually in packets and in
three grades according to the size of the fish.
The medium grade, however, is suitable for
most fishes. As for the material of which
the packet foods consists, its name is legion ;
meat meal, dried daphnae, dried flies, shrimp
meat, crushed biscuit, egg powder, dried
greenstuff (usually spinach), dried larval
molluscs-many of these ingredients being
contained in the one packet. Dried daphnae
can be bought separately, the fishes seem to
like it, but for some reason do not become
very fat if fed on it alone. An occasional
feed of packet food, in an established pond,
is usually sufficient.
The aquarium, however, is devoid of many
natural foods and so the fish must be fed
fairly frequently.
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