Koi Breeding 2009

Photo's of Club Members Koi
ian m
Posts: 67
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:35 am

Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by ian m »

Colin,#

Looking good, how many fry do you think you have at the moment, 100's, 1000's.

Ian
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by roselanekoi »

Hi Ian,

it's difficult to say, I'll guess at a couple of thousand, maybe more.

Colin
roselanekoi
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Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by roselanekoi »

Day 21

I guess that makes the fry 17 days old. It's amazing the difference in growth rates, the largest fry must now be about 25 mm in length whilst some of the smallest are still less than a 1/3 of that.

I'm now starting to see some sort of a pattern forming on the larger koi (or maybe it's just wishfull thinking). If they continue growing at this rate I'll be thinking of culling some of the larger fry in a week or so.
Koi Fry4.jpg
Koi Fry4.jpg (44.56 KiB) Viewed 20197 times
The downside of this rapid growth is the amount of food they are consuming. They are getting two feeds of brine shrimp a day plus about 6 feeds of fine granular fry food which I soak in water. The problem is that most of the food currently goes uneaten and settles on the bottom. This means that I am having to vacuum the bottom of the pond daily.

In the last couple of days some of the fry have started taking floating food off the surface and this should cut down on the waste. I've not noticed any cannibalism yet which I think is down to the plentiful supply of food.

Colin
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by roselanekoi »

Day 28

The fry are now 24 days old and continue to grow at varying rates. The largest must now be approaching 40mm in length.

The pond temperature is 24 C and the fry are being fed almost continually throughout the day. They are now taking floating granules of food from the surface which is cutting down on food waste but I'm now getting rather more waste from the koi. This means I'm still having to hoover the bottom of the pond daily.
Koi Fry5.jpg
Koi Fry5.jpg (23.58 KiB) Viewed 20166 times
One thing that has saved a lot of work is installing an answer in the settlement chamber. This is a big imrovement on the sponges used previously to prevent the fry passing through to the pump.
Answer.jpg
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If growth continues at the present rate in a week or so I can start culling the larger fry, This will simply be a case of removing any deformed, all orange or all white fry to reduce numbers.

Colin
ian m
Posts: 67
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:35 am

Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by ian m »

Colin,

They're certainly coming along well, I'm amazed at the different growth rates though at this early stage, some a double or even triple the size of the smaller one's. Keep the update scoming.

Ian
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by roselanekoi »

Day 33

The fry are now a month old and the pond is starting to look rather crowded so it's time to start reducing numbers. The fry are now of a size where I can weed out any all orange (about 10%) and all white fry (40 - 50%).

Before
Cull - before.jpg
Cull - before.jpg (28.87 KiB) Viewed 20135 times
After
Cull - after.jpg
Cull - after.jpg (23.66 KiB) Viewed 20132 times
I'm starting to see patterns forming on the larger fry so I'm hopeful I'll end up with one or two tidy kohaku in a few months time,

Colin
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
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Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by roselanekoi »

Day 41

The fry are now just over 5 weeks old and I'm starting to see some patterns emerging.
Koi Fry6.jpg
Koi Fry6.jpg (22.4 KiB) Viewed 20097 times
It's becoming clear why the Japanese cull so heavily as there are very few fry with promising patterns, certainly less than 5%.

Colin
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by roselanekoi »

Day 57

The fry are now about 8 weeks old and it's becoming apparent that my culling methods are not very efficient. There are still a lot of all white fry present plus I am failing to catch the very small fry which are too small to be held in the nets I have.

There's only one thing to do and that is to drain the pond down. Fortunately I have a kiddies swimming pool which holds about 1000 gallons so most of the water can be saved and used to refill the pond.

I have also taken this opportunity to seperate out the very small fry which will now be grown on in an aquarium. Printed below are some of the more promising 'keepers'.
Koi Fry7.jpg
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Koi Fry8.jpg
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Koi Fry9.jpg
Koi Fry9.jpg (22.17 KiB) Viewed 20010 times
I suppose I've still got about 250 kohaku fry left and now it's just a case of waiting to see how they grow and develop before a final cull is made in the autumn,

Colin
roselanekoi
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Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by roselanekoi »

Day 77

The fry are now over 10 weeks old and the remaining fry are doing well.

One of the problems I have is that a lot of fry pass through the bottom drain and into the settlement chamber. Not wishing to flush any down the drain I syphon out the waste daily and then once a week I empty the settlement chamber completely and return the fry it contains back to the pond.

So once a week I have a mini cull and weed out those not up to standard. The picture below shows four of the best of last weeks escapees, the largest being 9 cm
Koi Fry11.jpg
Koi Fry11.jpg (27.01 KiB) Viewed 19890 times
Colin
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Re: Koi Breeding 2009

Post by site admin »

Hi Colin,
Looking good, the one with the beni on the nose could be nice.
Is there a bit of underlying sumi?

Dave.
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