Female releasing eggs

[DNR]

Hello,

Being empty nesters, we're wanting. to keep 3-4 pet koi and the last thing we want to do is care for
babies of any kind. (except grandbabies

Can someone tell me the best way to achieve this? We want no more than 3-4 Koi as pets and have
thought about just keeping all females. Would that be a problem and can the female release her
eggs without the assistance of a male?

 

[koiguy1969]

keeping males is a better idea...they have the better looking body configurations of the two sexes (longer and leaner)....females will produce egggs with or without the spawn..no spawning may cause them to become eggbound, and that can cause some serious health problems. if i recall correctly your pond is 450 gals right?

 

[fishin4cars]

Most show folks keep all females or all males. You might want to do a little more research and I'll look around as well. I can tell you this, From what I gathered at the Koi show, Females tend to get larger than males, and grow at a faster rate. Some keepers that have smaller ponds will keep all males to be able to keep the size poad down on smaller ponds. But the tricky part is figuring out what fish are females and what are males. I have heard that some females may act like males and do the chasing looking like they are breeding but are actually just helping the female lay so they can get to more eggs to eat, then 1-2 years later start breeding themselves. All female ponds, I will see what I can find for you on information. I'm not real sure if they can still get egg bound and what to do when and if they do.

 

[DNR]

Thank you for your input. I already have 2 ( 10 and 13 inch females ). Everything I've read, described
the females as more friendly. One of them is a Chagoi which I also read is very calming and nice to have.
They are so sweet and have been eating from my hand since the 1st day. I never dreamed I could get attached to Fish but I already feel a strong connection with them and can't stay away from the pond.

I guess I need to find out if tht females do get egg bound, if there's anything I can do about it.

We ended up adding to the pond which is now 1000+ gallons. I need to update our profile.

 

[DNR]

PS... Excuse me Larkin, but what do you mean by " start breeding themselves " ???

 

[fishin4cars]

meaning they started off acting like males but ended up actually being females. probably should have worded differently.

 

[koiguy1969]

if you suspect a problem, you can make the females release their eggs by hand massaging them out..japanese koi breeders do it and exract semen as well mixxing the 2 themselves and distributing them on spawning mops in segregated safe nursery ponds.