To the breeders

[ididntdoit99]

I know there are a couple of you that breed alot of koi, my pond is about 1200 gallons right now, but in the spring, I planned to go alot bigger. (not sure how much, just dreaming at the moment) I love my koi, and want to get even more, so I really want to expand,

Anyways, For those of you that breed, I was just wondering what your setups were? How large are your ponds? and then do you have separate fry ponds or tanks?

I dont know if my intent will be to actually breed, but I'm sure some will happen naturually, and I guess, if its going to happen, I might as well keep them alive and maybe make a few bucks? The City i live in no longer has ANY small pet stores, They've all been run out by petsmart, petco, and walmart and such. So i thought maybe there are some people like me around that would rather buy thier pond fish from a local breeder that they know takes care of thier fish.

So anyway, long story short, please give me some ideas of your setups, and what do you guys do with all of those babies? sell locally? ebay? Im just kind of dreaming right now, I'd have alot to learn about breeding if i decided to do it. But it sure would be a lot easier to convince the wife to expand the pond if i said i could recoup some of that cost.

 

[DrCase]

I cull cull cull keep a few and give some to friends
my wife has ideas of selling. every thing is just for enjoyment for me
i raise them in a 100 gal stock tank
Build the pond bigger you can sell the fry

 

[ididntdoit99]

I dont have many friends who have ponds, my grandparents do (and they are always trying to give me fish) and my uncle does, but he only has 5 fish, his pond isnt deep enough to winter the fish, so he only has a few so he doesnt have to spend time finding them all in the fall to take them out.

I honestly dont know how big of a hobby koi ponds are in my area, but I'm sure for the few of us there are, they would like to buy koi from someone like me instead of a big name store like petsmart. I dunno, i was just wondering what i would do if I added more koi to my pond and they started spawning. I think three of mine should be big enough this next spring to spawn.

When my goldfish spawned... I just used them as feeder fish for my oscar and green terror, but I dont see myself doing that with the koi, espcially when I could be killing off some koi that could have turned out to be beautiful fish. (not that I dont have some nice looking comets in the pond now... but they are still just BIG feeder fish in my mind.)

 

[jneg]

So I will ask a question, how big do Kois get before they start to spawn?

 

[fishin4cars]

Koi can start spawning in their second year. usually need to be 15" plus but I have seen spawns from fish that were three years old and only 12"-14"
If breeding naturally happens in that size pond and you leave the parents in the pond you can expect not to many babies to actually survive.

 

[taherrmann4]

I must have all males or all females b/c there is no spawning in my pond and my koi are all about 20" in length. I think next year I am going to have to start playing some Barry White on speakers at night to get them in the mood. :redface:

 

[koidaddy]

Mine have spawned the last two years. The first year I didn't relize it untill I noticed some small fingerlings in the border rocks. Have 4 survivors that were able to hide from the hungry. This year I dropped swawning mops in and pulled them out when full of eggs and put them in a halved 55 gallon barrel untill they were large enough to go back in the main pond. I ended up with close to 30 survivors that some look nothing like anything in my pond, while some I can deffenatilly tell who they came from.

 

[CountryEscape]

Ididntdoit, if you have goldfish and koi, I was wondering if you will be keeping your goldies in with the koi when the koi start spawning. It's the same question I'm asking myself. I just started my pond in June of this year, put in feeder goldies, plus 4 larger ones that came with a 55 gal aquarium I bought, thus the idea for the pond. LOL I had at least 2, if not 3 spawnings from the goldies but did nothing to "save" them, so I have maybe 10 babies, and they are all very pretty. But, that being said, obviously the goldies spawn sooner than the koi. I know that they can cross breed, and eventually if I see whiskers, I don't want them to be ugly crossbreeds, but rather elegant koi. I'm planning to cull most of my goldies out in the spring, only leave my favorites, so I will have some really pretty ones to sell.
I see koi on Ebay all the time, but the shipping is very expensive, unless you want quite a few fish. I bought my koi from a "local" breeder, even though I had to drive 3 hours, I would definitely do it again, and may do just that come spring when he has his annual spring sale. I think if you get the word out that you have koi for sale, people will come out of the woodwork in time. Get a list, keep them on your list, post pics when you're ready to sell (will need separate area to put the sale fish into), and good luck! The guy I bought my 7 koi from was VERY professional, very concerned with his fish, and had what I would call perfect set up, although it's the only set up I've ever seen. He had a pretty good sized pond (not near as large as yours is now), plus a smaller pond, and was building another small pond for the fry. He took out the spawm mops and put them in a 55 gal barrel (plastic type) with a bubbler. It was neat seeing all the tiny fry in there when I went in July for my fish. He also had lots of huge plants that he grew and sold.
So, it can be done, and in time you can get them sold. You might also ask the local stores, even if they are the larger stores, and see what they would give you for your koi babies. They may not be able to buy from you, but if they can, they would be getting much better quality and color than what they normally have. I've not seen very many pretty koi in PetSmart myself. My local pet shop had some pretty koi (bought 4 from him) and they were from local breeder.
Good luck!

 

[ididntdoit99]

Country,
I think this spring I will get rid of my goldfish, or I will build them thier own pond, not sure of that yet, because I do have some very nice looking goldies and shubunkins that I dont know if I could part with.

Fishin, I probably fished out around 50 or so goldfish fry from my 1200 gallon pond this summer and fed them to my oscar inside the house. I know thats not a lot compared to the hundreds of eggs that were probably laid. But if 50 fish survive... I'm going to have to find something to do with them, whether it be to give them away or sell them.

 

[CountryEscape]

Yep, I have some really pretty Shubies and Goldies both what I bought and put in my pond, and what was produced from them. My original Shubunkin is a female, as I saw her spawning, and a Comet with red spot on it's head and very long tails is a male. Another Goldie with "white lips" (thus it's name, White Llips) is a female. Those get to stay, along with several of the babies that are very pretty marked red and white. Several started with black spots, too, but so far the black spots seem to fade as they get older. I'm hoping the colors come back in the spring, but we shall wait and see. Several of my originals were "feeders" and solid orange, but any with long tails (Comets) get to stay for now. I'm going to try to keep just long tails in the Goldies. I have both regular and butterfly fins in the Koi. Then I also have one Fantail that is white with both red and black tiny spots all over, thus her/his name, "Spot".
I know this is funny, and my local pet shop guy says I'm funny, but I sat and watched all my fish about a month ago and wrote down a description of each of the goldies. The koi are easily identified, they are all different, but the goldies are more similar. Besides the young black ones that turn to solid orange/red, I can tell each one apart. We'll see how much they change come spring, and how many are missing, if any.