Fry progress report

Joined
Mar 13, 2009
Messages
245
Reaction score
1
Location
Markham, Ontario
Hello all,

I'm going to share my progress raising koi fry. No idea how it will turn out.

My technique doesn't appear to be conventional. I'm not using sponge filters.

130G tank, with 30G DIY garbage can filter with scrub pads. It was initially my emergency tank. Haven't had an emergency for almost 2 years so I just keep koi in there to keep bio filters up and running. I moved two of my smaller koi over 1 week ago (14-15") and spawned the next day.

This is what I have so far.

After free swimming for a while, I fed them hard boil egg yolk and brine shrimp. Some ate egg yolk and some ate brine shrimp. Today is day 2. Will be switching over to pure brine shrimp likely tonight.
 

Attachments

  • a1.jpg
    a1.jpg
    56.9 KB · Views: 683
  • a2.jpg
    a2.jpg
    32.1 KB · Views: 650
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
242
Reaction score
6
Location
Indianapolis
Wow. Lots of fry in there. It sure is a full time job keeping them fed isn't it? A lot people do not realize how much work is involved. But it sure is fun watching them grow!
 

koiguy1969

GIGGETY-GIGGETY!!
Joined
Dec 15, 2008
Messages
10,587
Reaction score
6,408
Location
Michigan zone 5b
you gonna switch to freeze dried ( atleast partial) in a couple weeks? less work, and they love 'em!!..... you'll have them hand feeding real quick.
 
Joined
Mar 13, 2009
Messages
245
Reaction score
1
Location
Markham, Ontario
oh yeah.. Lots of work.. Mainly watching these guys and figuring in out if they're in trouble or need more food. I'm quite astonished at their growth rate.

I estimated 3000-8000 in the beginning at time of photo... I debated whether or not to sacrifice ~1000 so that I could siphon out the massive quantities of egg rot on the bottom of tank. I decided not to. The next day, the fry population dropped significantly. Maybe at least 50% reduction. At least mother nature did some work culling already. It don't really want to do actual culling until 1" since one of the koi parents is a kohaku. The other one is a regular domestic (I don't know proper name, I just call it scales or pine cone looking). I don't know how much I lost but I still have thousands. So far no real noticeable death yet.

I'll post pic of parents in the future.

Ammonia doesn't want to drop. Always hovering at 0.25ppm. nitrates zero so far... Using ammo lock if that is any help.

Yup, I am switching to dry as soon as they can eat it. I'll supplement with shrimp too. I'm going to try and grow some shrimp too. haha

I did a crash course in raising fry and and with my luck, didn't come across a detailed diary (something that I wanted to find). Just bits and pieces of info. I'm a total noob... If this works, other noobs may consider my journal helpful or what not to do.
 
Joined
Mar 13, 2009
Messages
245
Reaction score
1
Location
Markham, Ontario
So a few lessons learned so far:

Get rid of rotten eggs ASAP. Sacrifice some fry. In my case, it was accidental spawning. Koi just dumped all the eggs on bottom of tank. Layers upon layers. Take koi out right away. I was skeptical they weren't fertilized. Koi started munching on the eggs but impact was very marginal. Use methylene blue at 1/2 dosage (not malachite green). I dosed 80% of malachite green (well, Proform-C and it's properly different strength) hours before the actual hatch b/c the fungus was spreading wildly. Doubt it helped. Lucky it didn't kill or killed enough fry to notice.I just blasted as much fungus off as I can with turkey baster.
 

sissy

sissy
Joined
Jan 17, 2011
Messages
33,086
Reaction score
15,702
Location
Axton virginia
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
7A
Country
United States
turkey baster ok need to know your own or did you snatch it from the kitchen .Glad right now I don't eat meat
 

DrCase

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Dec 29, 2007
Messages
4,400
Reaction score
788
Location
Arkansas
Hardiness Zone
7a
Looks good !! keep us updated more light will help with the colors
 
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
242
Reaction score
6
Location
Indianapolis
This thread has me so excited for my spawn to happen. But I am a good 6 weeks off before it will happen. Still trying to decide on the parents to cross. They will get a 600 gallon show pool this year to spawn in. I will actually get a couple 100 gallon tanks going in the next 2 weeks of green water and natural food.

Please keep posting pics and information. Keep up the good work!
 

fishin4cars

True friends just call me Larkin
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
5,195
Reaction score
1,599
Location
Hammond LA USA
Hardiness Zone
8a
RSFish1 said:
This thread has me so excited for my spawn to happen. But I am a good 6 weeks off before it will happen. Still trying to decide on the parents to cross. They will get a 600 gallon show pool this year to spawn in. I will actually get a couple 100 gallon tanks going in the next 2 weeks of green water and natural food.

Please keep posting pics and information. Keep up the good work!

600 gallons to breed in? Are you talking about Koi? If so Your going to need to stay right there once they start. Koi get rough, VERY rough at times when breeding. Even in my 2500 gallon pond with pretty small breeder size koi (under 18") they wreck havoc! If you have one female and two known males they will still have a 600 gallon pond stirred up to the max! It can be done, not saying it can't but watch your female closely, She will need a place to rest and recooperate once the breeding has taken place, if they are left in the pond they will eat the eggs and fry, if moved together they will continue to try and breed for a long time and will run her ragged.
 
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
242
Reaction score
6
Location
Indianapolis
Yeah I will watch them pretty closely Then the males will get moved back to the pond and she will go in to another 500 gallon tank for a couple of days. The one female I will probably use is a tough old gal. She is bigger then the males. Both pools will have a pump/filter combination that will handle cycling 2000 GPH. So the water will be super clear and a very high turnover rate for when the spawning begins.

If I do it right like I have seen before, I will be able to tell when she is about ready to lay her eggs. I have seen how she fattens up in the past. I will move them in to the 600 gallon tank. And the water in the tank will be cooler then the pond. I have found this change in temps and water will induce labor. Usually within a day or so. So i can somewhat control when they spawn so I am around.
 

fishin4cars

True friends just call me Larkin
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
5,195
Reaction score
1,599
Location
Hammond LA USA
Hardiness Zone
8a
RSFish1 said:
Yeah I will watch them pretty closely Then the males will get moved back to the pond and she will go in to another 500 gallon tank for a couple of days. The one female I will probably use is a tough old gal. She is bigger then the males. Both pools will have a pump/filter combination that will handle cycling 2000 GPH. So the water will be super clear and a very high turnover rate for when the spawning begins.

If I do it right like I have seen before, I will be able to tell when she is about ready to lay her eggs. I have seen how she fattens up in the past. I will move them in to the 600 gallon tank. And the water in the tank will be cooler then the pond. I have found this change in temps and water will induce labor. Usually within a day or so. So i can somewhat control when they spawn so I am around.

The one thing that I would say is once they breed if possible once you move her to the 500 gallon tank, weeks of seperation to get her health back will probably be better on her than days. The female that breed last year for me needed about three weeks to get all her slime coating back, and most of the fin damage to repair itself. The stress that she wemt through was really hard on her. I was really amazed at how rough the males got during breeding. I had read about it and seen some video's but until I witnessed it all first hand I really didn't know that koi got that rough.
 
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
242
Reaction score
6
Location
Indianapolis
Well she will be able to rest there as long as she needs. I was amazed last year. She never showed any signs of bruising or fin tears or anything. She looked great afterwards. I think she knows how to handle the boys. LOL
 
Joined
Mar 13, 2009
Messages
245
Reaction score
1
Location
Markham, Ontario
I wanted to post pics last night but too busy. I'll try in the next few days.

Huge ammonia spike this morning. Used ammo-lock with yesterday's water change. Should be protected to 3ppm. This morning, i think it's 6ppm. I have no idea. I lost my colour chart a few days ago. arrggh... I dumped 6ppm worth of ammo lock. Difficult to know that this stuff is working since I'm skeptical about ammo-lock.

I think the ammonia spike is my fault... i tried some dry fry food last night. looked small enough but doubt they ate any. 1gram went into the tank. On top of all that, I ran out of baby brine (5g of eggs gone in 1 day) and had to switch to egg yolk for the rest of the evening. OVer feeding is easy...

Anyway, i'm going swap 1500G basement pond scrubbies tonight. Main pond running on all cylinders with twenty koi - 15-19" and one 22". That should keep ammonia at bay (I hope). I'm tired of doing 50% water changes and seeing that it spiked big time this morning, it's futile. I'm guessing all big koi will be gone in 1-2 months to new homes. I sold 27 of 30 big koi already. I was planning to shut down my 1500G but that ain't gonna happen just yet. Pool table will have to wait. lol

130G originally housed a 14" koi for the longest time so I guess it didn't poo to make good bacteria.

So far, fry population reminds unchanged from yesterday, only bigger.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Similar Threads

One week old fry 16
Fry with 2 tails 10
Should I keep the fish fry in the pond? 3
Koi-Met' fry 7
Fry 2
Fish fry myths? 4
This is what 100,000 Koi fry that a Female koi fish lay will make you awe! 8
Raising fry 2

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
30,780
Messages
508,559
Members
13,042
Latest member
lucaryan

Latest Threads

Top