Where do I start?

[jordangillespie1993]

Hey guys, so as you may have seen, one of my koi is ready to pop. I'm just looking for instructions basically on what to do.

Should I leave the fish to do its own thing.
Do I take the fish into a separate tank so the other fish dont eat the eggs?
Or none of the above?

Obviously this is isn't what I was hoping for since I just started, but it'll be a great achievement if I get some to survive. I'll even start digging another pond for the eggs if I have to lol. So as always, just give me as much advice as you can, things to watch out for, what I'll expect ect....

Thanks so much in advance.

 

[DrCase]

Give the fish some branches to lay the eggs on
then take them out to a tank, or separate them with a net so the other fish cant eat them

 

[Neo]

Placing something in the pond for a little while and then removing it definitely works! I've had ponds since I was 12 years old and never had any baby fish (survive at least) and last year we put a few water hyacinths in the comet pond then removed the plants because they were getting sun scorched and in a few months I noticed something swimming around in the small pond that is only meant for plants, luckily it was only four because I already had too many for the main pond.

I've seen some on here using yarn and a zip tie to make a spawn mop but I'm not finding the thread for some reason.

 

[fishin4cars]

If your just wanting to try and raise a few I found something that worked out really good this year. making a yarn spawning mop, branches, or other similar place for the eggs to be laid on is needed, you need a way to remove the eggs once they are laid, leave the rest with the adults and let nature take it's course. Some may survive, most will be eaten. trying to raise to many is a JOB! but this year I tried something new. I placed about 100 eggs in a floating pond net designed to hold floating plants to keep the fish from eating the roots. Also have about 20 or so water lettuce but hyacinth's or other floating plant will work fine. the screen must be small and the longer it can sit in the pond before the fish lay the better because the algae helps seal up some of the holes so the fry don't escape. Now you have the eggs, what do you do once they hatch, this is the neat part. NOTHING! let them feed on the plants and algae that form in the basket. for the next two-three weeks then start feeding finely ground up koi food. I am actually counting 16 babies that have already reached 1" long and released 3 that are close to 2" back into the main pond already. Now of course, I have no control on how good of quality fish I will end up with as nature will have done most of the culling process for me. but it has been a fun way to watch baby koi grow and I think I'll end upp with about twice as many babies this year as years past, and with half as much work. Probably not the most professional way to raise fry, but it doesn't HAVE to be a hard task to raise your own babies.