Lots of eggs

[Farken]

So I've had koi for a number of years, & I've had them spawn in the pond, with minimal survivors, & poor quality. (The nice ones always get eat'n!)

This afternoon one of the females was getting chased like crazy. So I pulled her out lightly squeezed a few thousand eggs out of her, then grabbed the best lookin boy that was after her & pushed some "milk" from him into a container. Mixed it up with some water & spread the eggs out in a tank, on a mop head. The waters @ 68-71deg, with some air stones.

After 12 hours about 1/8 of the eggs are white, does that meen all the clear ones are fertile?

Has anyone else tried hatching fry this way? & with what success?

Either way, my pond is full of fish & I dont need the fry, but I'm interested in giving it a go. Let me know what you think.

 

[HTH]

It is called hand spawning. Clear eggs are generally fertile.

I am not an expert. There are several youtube's on doing it for goldfish.
One is supposed to do the male first and then the female.

Good luck.

 

[Farken]

Ya, I'd watched a few of the vids on utube, Howard. But none of them show how it works out in 1 or 2 weeks.... lol
Just trying to do a few small water changes per day, to get the water quality better for them.
Not sure if i should do a 50%-75% change with RO filtered water at the same temp? The water stinks! My whole garage stinks! lol

 

[Carolyn22]

Ya, I'd watched a few of the vids on utube, Howard. But none of them show how it works out in 1 or 2 weeks.... lol
Just trying to do a few small water changes per day, to get the water quality better for them.
Not sure if i should do a 50%-75% change with RO filtered water at the same temp? The water stinks! My whole garage stinks! lol

50%-75% is a lot of water change. I would continue to filter it and look at a smaller water exhange. Perhaps 10%

 

[capewind]

Ya, I'd watched a few of the vids on utube, Howard. But none of them show how it works out in 1 or 2 weeks.... lol
Just trying to do a few small water changes per day, to get the water quality better for them.
Not sure if i should do a 50%-75% change with RO filtered water at the same temp? The water stinks! My whole garage stinks! lol

We had fish spawn in the QT in the basement last June ... OMG was the stench soooo bad ... wasnt expecting a spawn, so didnt shut off the filters ... retrieved a ton of eggs (put elsewhere) and did a 50% emergency water change DAILY for 3 or 4 days ... couldnt handle the smell (something I'll never forget) and was worried about the ammonia going through the roof (the QT was over populated) ... thankfully with an outside spawn, we can barely smell it Not an expert on this subject by any means ... made lots of mistakes, but ALL of the collected eggs (from the filter mats) hatched (I was paranoid of molding eggs, so was staring constantly at them)... Here's a picture of some of the eggs that the filter didnt get ... they were EVERYWHERE ...

 

[capewind]

50%-75% is a lot of water change. I would continue to filter it and look at a smaller water exhange. Perhaps 10%

The problem with running a filter is the eggs get sucked in. We put the filter mats full of eggs into a kiddie pool. I have a little whisper filter (meant for 40 gallons) that sits INSIDE a tank, so stretched a knee high around the intake, but you can NOT even run that until they are AT LEAST a couple of weeks old ... the babies got stuck against the intake ... the nylon prevented them from getting sucked in, but if they got too close they still got stuck ...

 

[Carolyn22]

You make a good point - I wasn't thinking. I do know that we always ended up with tons of babies with filters running and the adults in the pond. We always had more koi fry than we knew what to do with and it was never long before the filtration wasn't enough to keep up with the fish load.

 

[capewind]

I learned the hard way ... I also thought I was feeding them TONS of food, but it still took me a bit to figure out they were eating each other because I was still UNDER feeding ...

 

[Farken]

I am running a large sponge filter, the one with the airstone & tube up the center.
Shouldnt have a prob with babies or eggs getting sucked onto it.
Some, if not most, of the unfirtile eggs are getting"fuzy", so i dont know if the mold is going to become a problem?
The firtile eggs have a small black spot now, so thats a good sign.
Let me know if there is anything i can do regarding the mold, or just hope for the best?
Thanks for the comments.

 

[capewind]

I am NOT an expert AT ALL ... I had read that IF the eggs molded, to pull them out ... there was also something that people added to the water to prevent fungus, but I cant remember what it was ... maybe if I had planned it, I would have ordered whatever it was, but at the time, didnt think it would get here in time, so just went with what was in front of me ... nothing molded, so didnt have anything to worry about there.

 

[Farken]

Ya there is no way to remove all the "fuzzy's", not hundreds, were talking thousands of eggs. would be impossible.
Two more days & the ones that make it will make it.
Any insight as to what is the cause of the mold? just dead eggs going bad?

 

[capewind]

I really dont remember the details, just something about fungus on infertile eggs and that it could spread to the fertilized eggs and ruin the entire hatch ... I went into that hatch sooooo clueless. There are a few members in the group that do planned spawnings, so maybe they'll see your thread and jump in.

 

[Farken]

Ya the mold/fungus/whatever is spreading. but I still have a ton of eggs without, & they have 2 spots in them now.
They should break out tomorrow & the next day.
Now should I leave them in that tank for a while, or try & transfer them over to a new tank with fresh water right away? I have one ready to go.
I have shirimp on the ready also, I'll start a new batch every day now, untill I know the outcome.(maybe I wont need them! lol)

 

[capewind]

I would suggest you do a few websearches and see what you come up with for info. I can tell you what I did (right and wrong), but I dont want to give you what could be bad info. We had put the filter media filled eggs into a kiddie pool with just an airline initially. My water quality stayed good (tested ammonia daily at first), but did small water changes about every other day (10%). The biggest thing standing out at me right now is I would be uneasy about moldy eggs and it spreading. That was one thing I specifically remember reading about/the warnings. If it were me, I'd be sitting there with a spoon or butter knife picking out as many of the moldy ones as I could.

 

[Farken]

Wow... hundreds of babies already hatched. I pulled a few dozen out & put them in the "fresh" tank. I'll check how they do today, & decide tonight weather to move them all over or not.
I cant believe the number of them. Its amaizing that that many come from one female. Real low survival rate in the pond, considering I have 6 females.