What type of food for conditioning a pair to spawn

[koifishgirl]

Hi All, What is the best type of food to feed my female to condition her to spawn? All I know is it needs to be high protien.

[aquitori]

Hi All, What is the best type of food to feed my female to condition her to spawn? All I know is it needs to be high protien.

How big are your female oyagoi?

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I've always read that it shouldn't be high protein, it should be wheatgerm and stuff like wholemeal bread. That is the case for the weeks leading up to spawning anyway. I dont know about before this though, I just feed normally while the eggs are ripening and then wheatgerm for a couple of weeks and then stop feeding altogether 24 hours before you move them to their spawning pond. I'll try and dig my reading matter out and check.

[Maurice]

Have you a separate pond for males and females?

What type of food is unimprotant as far as I'm concerned.
Mine just get pellets, what ever type I'm feeding at the time, nothing special.
Maurice.

[koifishgirl]

She is about 16 inches and not onld enough I think yet but I am thinking of swamping a smaller pair they are old enough they just did not grow very big, she is still growing she is just slow about it.

[bekko]

The dogma is 2 years for males and 3 years for females. However, it really comes down to degree-days. In warmer climates, fish may spawn at a younger age.

Its not uncommon for 2 year old females to spawn. The professionals don't fool with a female less than 5 years old because the small number of eggs is not enough to fool with. For you and me, having too many eggs is probably a larger problem. Someone here commented about the egg size being smaller from young females.

It takes a male with some weight to "put the squeeze" on the female and express some eggs as he releases milt. You'll see one-year-old males acting like they are participating in a flock spawning, but invariably its the larger males doing all the heavy lifting.

-steve hopkins

[ranskye]

koifish girl,
id agree that it doesnt matter if you just feed them the pellets.
ive held fish in nets, just fed on pellets where they cant sift the bottom and they spawn fine. i find lack of stress is the key if your feeding her ok.
picking em up and transporting them for a few hours seems to put em off sometimes.
i do know a guy that brings his perch right up to condition with prawns and yabbies and he reckons it improves his hatch rate but koi dont seem to be so needy. so a variety would be good but theres variety plenty in most pellets already.
definately keep em separated sex wise if you can, thatll stop the mass spawn and when your not expecting it, as well as i think the girls are never getting bothered when they dont need it..
also dont do water changes in the weeks leading up to a spawning unless you really have to. i reckon ive seen girls ripen up and just sit waiting from that. I moved them to spawn and they just ooooozed eggs.
change the water or fill your spawn tank, then pair em up and theyll go for it.

degree days hey steve, good call. you can get more than one spawning per season if you do things well.

[dick benbow]

I'm a big fan of nightcrawlers. The mentality is that your feeding something alive as opposed to processed foods.

[koifishgirl]

what about cooked shrimp? Would cooking the shrimp would you loose the protein? Or maybe alot of the protein. What about live worms?

[gregbickal]

Im a fan of nightcrawlers also. In the spring when the temp is just right, they are out all over just crawling on the ground. Pick them up at night by flashlight. I also made my own DIY worm shockers to help get the stubborn ones.

We had a warm rain one night in November, it was very unusual. All of my koi were indoors for the winter. I went out and caught 150 large nightcrawlers and fed them to the koi. They were very happy.

I feed those salad shrimp also. $4 a pound at Wal Mart.

[dick benbow]

You can cook the shrimp but you loose certain properties that are fragile and are lost in cooking. Avoid the cost and crush some "crawdaddies " and let them remove the meat from the shell by sucking it in and spitting it out! Just make sure the source for this protein in a healthy body of water with no issues.