How to Bottle Feed Your Koi

"It's your maternal instinct gone haywire." That's what my mom said to me years ago while visiting my house. At the time we were looking at one of my aquariums and I was commenting on how well the fish were doing.

"You mean my maternal instinct being sublimated," I suggested, trying to take the sting out of it. I didn't convince her. People always seem to think there's something wrong with me. I don't get it.

More fish than a pet store - what's weird about that?

I've often said that everyone needs a vice. It could be so much worse.

I really enjoy my outdoor ponds, especially my koi pond. I don't know what I'd do in the winter if I didn't have fish in the house. So I do. I have 3,700 gallons of them. About half are tropical fish and about half are koi and goldfish. I have three indoor ponds and over 35 aquariums What's weird about that?

I have to try it

I saw a picture once of someone feeding a koi from a baby bottle. It was so funny, I knew I had to try it. I'm too busy during the summer, but in the winter I sometimes have a little time to try silly things like this. With the koi in my basement fish room, of course.

The pampered koi in the photo is named Tangelo and she was pretty easy to train to take food from a baby bottle. She was already tame and would eat out of my hand. I just had to get her to figure out the bottle.

I expanded the hole in the nipple so it was just smaller than the size of the koi food pellets. That way the food doesn't fall out; she has to suck it out.

She was the one I chose out of all the koi in that tank because she is the most aggressive. And her mouth was just the right size for this bottle. The smaller koi can't fit it into their mouths and the bigger guys don't seem to think it's worth their time.

A vice of her own

So Tangelo and I are buddies. She has a vice of her own now. She hits the bottle pretty hard, if you know what I mean. If I'm too slow getting it to her, she flips water with her tail and soaks me. And if I don't hold on tightly, she rips the bottle right out of my hand. Koi are strong.

How about a pacifier?

So after having so much fun with Tangelo that first winter, I brought her inside for the winter again the next year. I wanted to know if I could get a koi to suck on a pacifier. What's weird about that?

Tangelo is even more food motivated than the average koi, so she's a good choice to train on new tricks. I held the pacifier at the water's surface and waited patiently. It didn't take long for her to come check it out. Bam! She sucked the pacifier out of my hand and sailed away with it.

Seeing a fish swimming around underwater with a binky hanging out of its mouth has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Not weird, mind you. Just funny.

She spit it out pretty fast, though, once she realized it wasn't edible. I retrieved it and tried to get her to take it again, but she would have none of it. And they say fish have only a 3-second memory. No way.

Okay, on to Plan B. The pacifier was hollow, so I cut a V-shaped flap in the nipple portion. I was able to lift this flap and stuff some koi food pellets inside. When I let go of the flap, it snapped shut and held the food in place.

Again I held the pacifier at the water's surface and waited. It took awhile, but did I mention this girl is very food motivated? Plus my koi are not scared of me, so after awhile she came back to check it out again. Eventually she nabbed the pacifier out of my hand and took off with it.

She kept it long enough to suck all the food out and then spit it out. One time is all it takes with her. This koi was hooked.

Say cheese

The next step was to get a photo of her sucking on the binky. Much harder said than done. There are several problems with this kind of thing.

First of all, when taking photos through water it's always tough to avoid getting glare off the surface of the water. I've had some practice with my koi outside, but glare is always an issue.

Second, koi usually won't hold still just because you want to capture their portrait.

Third, because Tangelo grabs the pacifier from the surface, the water is roiled up whenever she's got the binky. So you can't see her clearly.

Fourth, your window of time is about one second. That's the time between when she grabs the pacifier and stops to suck the food out and when she spits the pacifier back out.

That said, my patient boyfriend and I were able to team up and finally get a shot with one of us feeding her and the other snapping the photo.

What's next?

By the next winter Tangelo had gotten too big to want to bring her inside for the winter. But I have other koi in the basement, so the opportunities to play remain. I wonder if I could teach one of those koi to ring a bell . . . ?

Sorry, Mom

Maternal instinct gone haywire? I don't think mom was right this time. I mean, I really don't think fish can take the place of babies. That's what my cats are for.