Trouble Spawning

[KoiPaarl]

The Kohaku is from Marudo and is the male. The Tancho Sanke is from an unknown breeder. Not being experienced in this matter, my gut feel is also that the Sanke should potentially maybe almost be a better option but I like the suggestion of checking as I go on.

[mitten]

I don't think that the first cull would be any different than it would for be for either a kohaku or a sanke spawn... Cull solid reds and solid whites. Probably all the black too.

The next cull will depend on just how much water you have. Remember that reducing the numbers to allow growth is the real task. You just try to accomplish that reduction by keeping the good ones. The most likely mistake would be keeping too many, not keeping the "wrong" ones.

Do you have unlimited space in the dams, KP?

Mickey the windowman

[KoiPaarl]

Unfortunately my space is VERY limited. I am building two more ponds of 4000L each but this will still take a bit of time to finish. This time round I will have to cull heavily but that is good. It will give me good practice.

Question - I see white eggs and I see translucent eggs. Which ones have been fertilised and which ones not?

[PapaBear]

The translucent ones should be fertile as that is the indicator of change within the sac. The ones that are still white are infertile and should be removed before the others hatch, otherwise they'll make a train wreck out of your hatchery water.

[bekko]

Congratulations !! I agree with Mickey. Cull the black fry after a week. Your next task will be getting rid of the higoi and shiro muji but you'll have to wait a while for that. The clear eggs are the good ones. What do you have to feed them?

-ste

[KoiPaarl]

Will start with Brine Shrimp hatching in a few days time. I have the eggs, I know it needs heat and an air pump but does anybody know the percentage of salt in the water for the Brine Shrimp. I have a digital salt meter so if I have a percentage, then it should be fairly easy.

Also - how on earh to you remove the infertile eggs from in between all the others? That is near impossible.

[bekko]

Don't bother trying to remove the bad eggs. You will dislodge as many good ones as bad ones. Tomorrow you will have a lot of fungus growing on the eggs. The fungus mainly attacks infertile or dead eggs, but will get on good eggs as well. Some of the good eggs will hatch even though they are covered in fungus hairs. Some people use methylene blue to battle the fungus. I don't do anything except try to keep the water clean until they hatch.

Brine shrimp from different sources have different optimal hatching salinity. First, check the container for instruction. If it says nothing, then use 25 grams per liter = 25 parts per thousand = 2.5 percent. Remember, they also need light to hatch.

If you have any green water then give some to the koi fry beginning the day before they are ready to start feeding. All the little protozoans and other bugs in green water get the fry off to a good start. They also ingest algae and detritus from the green water which is good for them. Green water will also increase the nutritional value of the brine shrimp. Brine shrimp are fairly nutritious just after they hatch and before they use up their own yolk reserves. However, after the brine shrimp have used up their yolk and are ready to feed they have little nutritional value and are mostly chitin. Their nutritional value goes way up again when they are feeding on green water or one of the special brine enrichment products. Koi fry fed brine shrimp alone often do not do very well - but it depends a lot on the quality of the brine shrimp.

Some people make a big deal about minimizing the amount of brine shrimp cycts (egg) going into the koi fry tank. True, if koi fry eat brine shrimp cysts it can clog their gut and kill them. However, the koi fry will only eat brine shrimp cysts as a last resort when there is nothing else to eat. If you keep plenty of live brine shrimp and other suitable feeds in the fry tank then you do not need to worry about them eating cysts.

-ste ve ho

[KoiPaarl]

It seems as if the second spawning attempt is also a failure . After the male and female lost interest in each other, I gave them a dip and replaced them in the main pond. I then dosed the spawning pond with Malachite Green at 0,2 mg per liter so on the 1800 liter pond I weighed out 3.2 gram . After two days the water started smelling a bit foul and I did a 30% water change. Today, day 3 after spawning, there are still no fry and the water is smelling and the eggs seem to have fungus. How is this possible . I airated well and had a pump circulating the water the whole time. Temp was stable on 26Cel. I think I did it all by the book. My only thought is that I could have overdosed the Malachite so please check my calculation.

Any advice anybody????????

[koifishgirl]

Next time try placing a spawning pen inside the pond you plan to raise the fry that you have already prepaired for the fry in advance. After the spawn is complete remove the parents . Then let mother nature take care of the rest.

As far as what you done, I dont know the answers. I for one think unless you are lucky and have done this many times its hard to control water quality for eggs and fry. If you try this again I would suggest that you keep fresh water from the pond you have prepaired moving to the hatchery back to the main pond to keep water from going fowl. This may not be the right thing to do but it sure beats messing with mother nature adding chemical and all that..

Good luck with your next spawn and sorry to hear about this one. I too will be trying my hand at it this spring, but I plan to do what I have told you. I have also noted that when the water start's to turn light green, in what used to be my pond that it's time for the parents to start spawning.

I can remember me trying to spawn tropical, I went by the book with no luck, after I used fresh branch water I was able to raise them up to size that they would take ground up flake food. I put live plants in the tanks after the eggs hatched and the book said dont. There was so many things that could attack the eggs and fry, so the water was to be very clean. Like I said I had no luck going by the book. I was so mad because I had done all this by the book with no luck, so one day I sat back and thought about mother nature and when I followed her I was able to raise them with no trouble. And believe me tropical fry are a lot smaller than koi fry.

Hope you get the answers to what went wrong.

[PapaBear]

Day 3 may be 1 day eary yet for hatching, but with the measures you've taken it doesn't sound particularly encouraging.
Does anyone know if dropping in some zeolite would be good/bad at this point? Ammonia reduction at this point would seem like a good idea.