My breeding tank

[Shdwdrgn]

My goal was simply to protect the eggs long enough for them to hatch and grow a little, before tossing them back into the pond. I decided to use a 5-gallon bucket as my base, because I don't need a lot of volume, and I wanted to be able to set it somewhere out of the way that wouldn't kill grass or plants.

I tapped into one of the access plugs and ran 1/4" ID hose to provide a constant supply of fresh water into the bucket. This ensures the babies will be hatched in the same water conditions in which they will live. Which this provided a nice flow of water, it did not stir up the water in the bucket very well, so I grabbed an aquarium air pump, and put it underneath the green pan to protect it from the sprinklers.

The drainage line is a PVC adapter -- 1" NPT to 3/4" slip-fit. I cut a hole in the side of the bucket and threaded the adapter into place. It seems to hold well enough that I didn't even seal the hole. An 8" peice of 3/4" pipe directs the flow back into the pond, and I used a piece of black open-cell foam (sold for a Fluval aquarium filter) pushed into the end of the adapter to prevent babies from being swept back out into the pond.

Here's a detail of how I tapped a water line into my existing plumbing. It doesn't pump a huge amount of volume, but it will be enough to keep the water in the bucket fresh.

Here's a shot of how much water is actually flowing out of the bucket.

With two air lines feeding in, the water is getting stirred pretty well. I think this provides about the same amount of current as the yarn-mops were getting in the stream. The baby water-lettuce should provide something for the hatchlings to nibble on, or at least supply other water organisms that they might like.

Bucket: $2.50
Pipe and fittings: approx. $3.
Open-cell filter foam: $5 (four pieces, I only used one)
Yarn for mops: $6
Air pump with tubing and stones: $18

Most of the eggs have already been eaten off the mops, but there were still quite a few up the the tops (maybe 100-200?). The eggs were laid Friday-Saturday, so I should start seeing some fry by Monday-Tuesday. Most likely I have a mix of comets, shubunkins, and koi, and there's no telling who fertilized which eggs. Some of the eggs are still yellow, others are turning white. I will probably pull the mops out of the bucket by Thursday or Friday, as I believe the fertile eggs are supposed to all hatch within 3-4 days. Then its just a waiting game... give them a year to grow, and see what kind of babies I actually have.

 

[mrsclem]

Dealing with my 2nd batch of eggs. 1st batch pulled 1 month ago and put in a 100 gal stock tank. No pump, filter or air. Watched the eggs for 2 weeks and did not see any fry. When I went to dump the tank last week there were fry swimming! Pulled 8 mops today from the gin rin tank and have them in a separate tank till they hatch. Hoping for more than the 18 I have in the other tank.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Wow, that's crazy! Did they really take that long to hatch, or were they just hiding that well?

 

[koiguy1969]

eggs that are white are infertile.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

eggs that are white are infertile.

I just saw that mentioned elsewhere too... definitely good to know which is which. From what I saw, I have a pretty good mix of fertile and infertile eggs, but still plenty that at least have a chance of hatching. So does anyone have solid info on how many days before the eggs should hatch? I was thinking 3-4, but I may be thinking of our aquarium fish.

 

[HTH]

Hatch time depends mostly on temperature. After they hatch they have some time in which fry absorb their egg sack prior to being free swimming. Generally hatch can be as short as 2 days and as long as 5. Two days to become free swimming.

The big danger is fungus when hatching. Mild aeration to keep the water moving helps. Some people put a few drops of methyl blue in the water. Others hatch in pond water like your are doing.

With a large hatch one should really have space and food ready for the fry so you can cull defective ones and get down to a reasonable sized mob. If you let nature do the culling one tends to end up with plain looking fish that often do not decolor.

 

[mrsclem]

I'm guessing mine were hiding. I used the old strapping material that I used to use in the filters as mops. Fish seem to love it. The eggs pulled yesterday were all yellow. 3 females and about 6-8 males involved. Glad I still had the bird-x net across the top or there would have been fish on the ground. Will have to swap out the fry from last month with the new batch is a lot hatch.

 

[Dave 54]

My main worry here is the constant supply from the mains how are you getting around the chlorine and clhoromines that used to treat fresh water nowadays ?
Wont it have the effect of killing off any fry you hatch out, or have you found a way around this ?
Or are you tapping into the ponds existing plumbing which would be better for them as there would be no risk from the above then, as its natural pond water you'd be piping to them

rgrds

Dave

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Dave - For my setup, the water is 100% from the pond. The plumbing that I tapped in to is my return pipes between the pumps and the filters. The only bad part about this is that if the pond gets stirred up, it all flows downhill to the pumps and will get pushed into the breeding bucket. Of course I can plan around this and pull the water line out of the bucket while working on the pond. The only time any fresh water gets added from the house is when the sprinklers are running... some of that will fall in the bucket, but it should be such a small amount that it immediately dillutes before it harms the fry.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Still no sign of any swimmers last night or this morning. Of course half the space in the bucket is taken up by the mops , so I'm not holding my breath regarding my chances of actually seeing anyone swimming around yet. Tomorrow I might pull each of the mops out and inspect them for any eggs that still look viable, but all of the white eggs at the top of the mops that I can see have molded.

 

[koiguy1969]

the first couple days they will feed on their egg sack... you will see them attached to the wall of your bucket... theyre tiny and look much like mosquitoe larvae. you can hard boil an egg and crumble bits of the yolk to start feeding for a couple days. it has little nutritional value, but helps expand or "stretch" the digestive tract

 

[Shdwdrgn]

I was wondering just how small they were going to be. I've never seen a newborn comet/koi before. Its one of those things, once you finally see the first one and know what you're looking for, suddenly you start seeing a whole lot more.

Thanks for the tip on the hardboiled yolk. We also have some daphnia for the newborn aquarium fish, and I was planning on dropping in a hyacinth and some water lettuce when I take out the mops. Hopefully the live plants will help provide the food they need until they can start eating some flake food.

 

[HTH]

Thinking this is hornwort. It does not help a lot that they are mostly transparent and tiny. This guy is free swimming 4 or 6 days post hatch. A magnifying glass helps.

You can actually see when they are hungry because of their empty transparent stomach and this guy needs feeding.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Ugh, really? Then I think I've seen some dead ones already floating on the surface. I just thought it was some insect larvae from the water lettuce I put in the bucket, but now I should probably take a closer look.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Hooray!!! They hatched today :banana:
It's very possible that the dead things I was seeing were in fact babies, but today there's a LOT of babies swimming around. I'm seeing probably 30 at one time swimming around the top, and who knows how many more are hiding down in the mops still. I dropped a hyacinth into the bucket to make sure they have plenty of fresh microscopic organisms, and of course the incoming water supply should also be giving them a steady supply. If the pond water doesn't supply the with enough food, was have frozen cubes of daphnea and baby brine shrimp I can feed them.

I also saw one baby in the stream where I pulled one of the mops out, so the rest of the eggs are also hatching. I don't have much faith in any of them surviving, but you never know.

So now the real fun begins... Any thoughts on how old they have to be before you can start seeing the difference between comets and koi? There's probably some shubunkin in there as well. The koi I got in 2011 were trying to spawn last year, but were still too small. This year I think its a good bet that there will be some viable eggs. Of those, I have a pair of platinums with the black pinecone pattern on their back -- regular female and butterfly male -- who regularly pair off together. Would love to see what their offspring look like.