Welcome to May's Blog, and with our summer having arrived in earnest, I hope you all enjoyed a long Bank Holiday Weekend.
I took the great weather as an opportunity to carry out my annual measure and health checks, all was well and I'm pleased to report some further growth which is always a bonus for any hobbyist.
I ran my pond much cooler over the winter, having historically always heated throughout the year, and to be honest its worked out pretty well.
I'm not one to preemptively treat my fish, in fact I'm not a believer in adding anything to my pond at all, instead relying on a constant fresh water trickle in and my drum, moving bed and bakki shower to do the rest.
Feeding regimes and stocking densities are one of those perennial conversations in our hobby. I think most of us know that if you overstock, you will probably run into problems with fish health, alongside your fish clearly not having adequate space to grow and in return thrive.
1 fish to 1,000 gallons being the suggestion, which blows away the 1 to 250/1 to 500 gallons broadly quoted by numerous aquatic websites and other commentators - food for thought indeed.
Before we end up down a rabbit hole, and on the subject of food, I also feel we should all be a little more focused on diet.
You may have seen the Film 'Super Size Me' which follows Morgan Spurlock on his quest eating only McDonald's fast food...
If all you are doing is feeding large quantities of inadequate food, it may repay you with some growth, but is that actually in the best interest of your fish's health and longevity?
I'm a firm believer in mixing up fish diets as much as possible, so I'll tend to feed differing combinations of dried food (usually Saki Hikari Balance, Growth and/or Multi Season) during the Spring and Autumn periods, and during the Summer growing months a period of only Growth food.
There are then numerous feed and supplement options; dried (pellet), live (for the less squeamish of you), or pick up some seafood from your local supermarket. It doesn't have to be expensive; prawns, mussel meat or white fish are great choices, numerous fruit/vegetables will also be devoured, your fish will thank you for it!
On a bit of a tangent, but still with the fish and food topic, check out the inhabitants of these outdoor Japanese kitchens in Harie (Shiga) known as Kabata
Over the last few weeks Paul Henderson (National Show Chairman) and I have been discussing a complete reworking of The National Show Trade Exhibitor T&C's.
These have not been looked at in a number of years, and we seem to have a belief in some quarters that The Society or The National Show already operate some sort of acceptance criteria, or that we have a Team of people avidly looking at all social media and other online aquatic trade content - we don't.
The National Show has always operated on a goodwill basis, however we are going to ensure that moving forward we provide clear guidelines on our offers for trade stand space, provide a workable trade space acceptance criteria, alongside our usual T&C's.
Paul and I are working to introduce this for 2024, this is at the draft stage currently, and this will be going forward as a proposal for our AGM in 2024.
I can't quite believe we are already into June, with The National Show now around the corner. I also can't promise when I'll get June's Blog out, so I may do something a bit different direct from the Showground...
Whatever you are up to, get outside, enjoy the weather and the hobby - I look forward to seeing you at the show!
Feel free to get in touch via chairman@bkks.co.uk
