Pond Nursery

[ROW FISH]

So I started a new little experiment in my pond yesterday. Wish I had taken a picture to show. Try to do that this weekend if I remember.

I had been noticing my goldfish spawning over the past two weeks and a few days ago I started noticing fry swimming around and between my lilies. My young fish population did not do very good this year compared to last year. I only have 3 new baby fish this year, compared to 8 last year. I'm sure this can be contributed to the larger fish sizes this year and thus most of the fry got eaten. Now my pond does not need many more fish but I just love watching them grow up and see how their colors turn out. Additionally, I have had good success with my white cloud mountain minnows spawning as well. However, with each spawn I only get one baby that actually survives. I would like to try to increase this survival rate for the minnows so I started an experiment.

I took a 10 gallon bucket put a decent sized rock in it (one of the rocks that was already submerged in pond so that it has a good amount of beneficial bacteria and a developed "slime" coat of algae on it. I then moved one of my air stones into the bucket and added a handful of anacharis. I submerged this bucket into the pond to the point at which the top lip was 1" over the max fill line of the pond. I then filled the bucket with pond water up to 3" below the lip (this was to keep it from overflowing with the increased rain we have had lately.

Then the fun part started. I got a plastic cup from the kitchen and began attempting to catch a variety of the fry swimming around. There were noticeably different sets of fry. best I could tell was one set of white cloud minnow and 2 or 3 sets of goldfish (hopefully my Shubunkins but unlikely). I placed about 5 of each set into the bucket and now I will wait to see if I can successfully raise them in the bucket. I plan on changing out anacharis every once in awhile to add the micro organism food that the fry require. Will also do at least two 1/4 - 1/3 water changes every week. Also added a yellow lily pad for food source.

So has anybody ever done something similar to this before? What were your results? I plan on leaving the little guys in there till they reach 1/2" or so and then either move them to my inside aquarium until they reach an inch or depending how many there are I'll just release them straight into the pond and let natural selection take back over.

All input is appreciated...

 

[peter hillman]

Does the bucket get water flowing thru it? Sounds like great pond fun so long as you don't end up with too many fish!

 

[ROW FISH]

No water flowing thru just an air stone to keep water moving and oxagenated.

 

[Usman]

very exciting part to see fry and grow them , how many weeks old?
Im also looking for answers i usualy hv shub sarasa fry, my experience is if they are 1 to 4 weeks ,they r very sensitive mostly if i seprated them in aquarium or container they didnt survived , i did experimented last week , put one in aquarium and few in pond small corner made it seprate where water pass thru but they cant get out , if u can try creating such portion or pit within pond or from mosquitoe net , ithink pond environment and water is best for them as they were born there , if they were born in aquarium they might survive in it but when we shift them they r fragile , or place ur bucket in pond and cycle thru pond water thru it some how some drops
My hatching and survival rate at pond is very low may b bcz i dont have submerged plants and less roots around

 

[mrsclem]

I have moved koi eggs to 100 gallon stock tanks to raise the fry. I lost most of the first few batches. Water quality is the biggest issue. Eggs that don't hatch will rot. I just used an air stone for the first month and then added a pump and filter. Pump has to be wrapped to keep the fry form going into it. If you are going to do this outside, I recommend window screen over the container. I got frogs in my tanks that layed eggs and between the frogs and tadpoles, I lost a lot of fry. Also mosquito larve will kill fry. I managed to raise 60 koi fry last year and 60 this year doing this. Good luck and have fun watching them grow!

 

[Usman]

very exciting part to see fry and grow them , how many weeks old?
Im also looking for answers i usualy hv shub sarasa fry, my experience is if they are 1 to 4 weeks ,they r very sensitive mostly if i seprated them in aquarium or container they didnt survived , i did experimented last week , put one in aquarium and few in pond small corner made it seprate where water pass thru but they cant get out , if u can try creating such portion or pit within pond or from mosquitoe net , ithink pond environment and water is best for them as they were born there , if they were born in aquarium they might survive in it but when we shift them they r fragile , or place ur bucket in pond and cycle thru pond water thru it some how some drops

I have moved koi eggs to 100 gallon stock tanks to raise the fry. I lost most of the first few batches. Water quality is the biggest issue. Eggs that don't hatch will rot. I just used an air stone for the first month and then added a pump and filter. Pump has to be wrapped to keep the fry form going into it. If you are going to do this outside, I recommend window screen over the container. I got frogs in my tanks that layed eggs and between the frogs and tadpoles, I lost a lot of fry. Also mosquito larve will kill fry. I managed to raise 60 koi fry last year and 60 this year doing this. Good luck and have fun watching them grow!

Oh good info , do mosquito larvae kill fry? how to prevent that ? Did u use mob or plants , how did u move eggs? Once i used mob fr eggs and seprated them , still many rot , didnt use methyle blue , ithink i lacked aeration
Yes ithink this is big issue , my pond has alot of adult fishes koi gf and im sure amonia nitrates may fluctuate time to time which adults can tolerate only , its like a stream so water flows from everywhere. either i shud hv stoped feeding , , so need to setup seprate facility with filter and all.
Did u suceeded breeding good quality koi ? which types

 

[mrsclem]

Used plants to move eggs. Mosquito larvae will kill fry. I used window screen over the tank. I got mostly ginrin koi which is what I was attempting.
Once the fry start growing and you start feeding you will need to monitor water quality and either use an established filter or do frequent water changes. Also, larger fry will eat the smaller ones with koi. Not sure about goldfish.