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  • Results 1 to 19 of 19

    Thread: spawning

    1. #1
      giacopuzzi is offline Junior Member
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      spawning

      Hi, I am writing from Italy.
      this is my first attempt to a controlled spawning so I am asking you a confirmation that I got right the full process:
      1) I filled a 500 liter tub with 20 cm green water coming from the winter rain collected over my swimming pool cover to grow infusoria (PH 7 and KH 0). Then added other 20 cm with main pool water (PH 7,5 and KH 13) to raise KH.
      2) I put daphnia magna in the tank (no areation so far)
      3) I will put my selected koi set in an intex pool with areation, spawning ropes and no filtration
      4) Once spawned I will put the spawning ropes in the tub (question: if i use malachite green and then put the ropes in the tanks the daphnia will be killed?)
      5) Will add Sponge air filters to the tank
      6) after 2 weeks I will raise the water level to 80 cm (fry swimming)
      7) after other 2 weeks I will cull and put the selected fry in the main pool in a fry cage (main pool with daily complete water change and no filters)

      Do you find it correct? Do you have suggestion?
      Thanks a lot

      Alberto

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    2. #2
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Hi Alberto. Welcome to Koiphen. I can see that for a first controlled spawn attempt, you've put a lot of thought into this and made lots of preparations. Others on this forum may be better able to answer your questions than I, since some use methods for spawning, treating, feeding, raising that are more similar to your processes than those that I have used (described in my Showa Spawn thread). That said, here are a few comments:

      In step 1, where you mention "PH 7,5 and KH 13", I'm not sure if you meant KH of 13 ppm or 13 degrees (drops). If 13 degrees, that would be about 230 ppm, somewhat high KH, which usually causes the PH to be higher than 7.5. But if you mean 13 ppm (less than one degree), that is not much buffering, and PH crash may be a concern. Maybe there is some reason that you need to keep it that low, but I like for mine to be at least 3 or 4 degrees or higher (over ~60 ppm) as a PH buffer. [Since I have not used daphnia, malachite green or sponge filters, I will not comment on those steps].

      In step 7, I am a little unclear on a couple of things about the set-up you are describing. You wrote "... put the selected fry in the main pool in a fry cage (main pool with daily complete water change and no filters)". Is your "main pool" where you keep your adult koi or are they kept in another pond? How big is the main pool? Please tell us a little about the "fry cage". Does it have tiny holes that the fry cannot get out? Or are the holes larger, providing a refuge for the fry that the adult koi cannot get into? From your quote, it sort of sounds like your main pool had no filtration. I'm puzzled by the "daily complete water change" if this pool is a large body of water.

      Sometimes as fry grow, the larger (tobi) start to eat the smaller, eventually by the hundreds. Some folks cull the really big ones out and others move those to another container. In any case, it may help to have a way to separate the tobi that start to get too big to fast. Best of luck with your spawn and raising of fry.

      Matt

    3. #3
      dragonfly1976 is offline Senior Member
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      Alberto, if you are worried about contaminating the daphnia tank with malachite green, the you can always dip the ropes in clean water before inserting in the daphnia tank to rinse them off. Please post some updates for us.

    4. #4
      giacopuzzi is offline Junior Member
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      1) KH is 13 german degrees (quite high but normal where I live)
      7) sorry, I meant my "main pond" which is a 50.000 litres pond fed continuously by a spring.
      here the link to my presentation with pictures
      https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showth...p?159612-Hello
      I keep the adult koi in there. the spring provide me 50.000 litres of water a day and I discard it daily.
      I have not built the fry cage yet. please find below a link I found on how to build it
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg-BNCGNQkk

      Below also a picture of my set-up (areator and water is missing in the intex so far) and of the main pond.

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      At he moment temperatures are low in northern Italy so I am waiting for better days to start. Moreover daphnia boon has not happened yet.

      thanks for the advice on malachite. But what about salt? If I keep 0,3% salt in the daphnia and fry tub? Will daphnia die?

      thanks again

      Alberto

    5. #5
      dragonfly1976 is offline Senior Member
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      Alberto,
      Daphnia like clean water like you have from your spring. I would have to say that putting that much salt in the daphnia tub would definitely kill them in a hurry.

    6. #6
      delbert is offline Supporting Member
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      Nice looking pond ... Alberto

      Don't make it to hard on your self raising the fry . Your fresh spring water should be all they want

    7. #7
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      Quote Originally Posted by giacopuzzi View Post
      1) KH is 13 german degrees (quite high but normal where I live)
      7) sorry, I meant my "main pond" which is a 50.000 litres pond fed continuously by a spring. ...
      No worries about PH crash there, and no need for filtration. You have a beautiful pond and landscape Alberto.

    8. #8
      giacopuzzi is offline Junior Member
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      Dear all,
      I explain what I have done so far and the poor results I got.

      On Thursday 18th of may I put 4 koi in the intex hoping to have at least one female. Nothing done! (some day after I realized they were all males).
      Last Thursday I put other 3 koi in the intex and they started o give interesting signs of spawn. I found that I have 2 females and 5 males in the intex but a female is not interested in the game.
      In the past few days some were of intense moments and others of flat calm.
      Yesterday morning there was so much movement that I thought I was there!
      Today, little mevement and no eggs.

      Some koi are in the intex for more then 10 days.
      The intex temperature ranges from 20 to 23 degrees while in the pond it goes from 14 to 15 degrees.

      I fed them a little, and I performed water changes at 20% daily.
      On 24 I did a water test with not good results:
      Ph 8
      Kh 9
      No2 0,1
      No3 between 10 and 20
      Nh4 between 0.1 and 0.2

      I am thinking to change 50% water, put them all back in the pond and change couples.

      Some questions:
      1) How long does the egg laying process last?
      2) and spawn it in general?
      3) Should I keep them at 23 degrees without giving food for 10 days? I thought it was quicker
      4) Can the males spread the seed even if the female does not spawn?
      5) Can males be used in reproduction more times in the year?
      6) Do I have to acclimatize them in a plastic transport bag before putting them back in the pond at 15 degrees? for how long?
      7) Does the female risk ovarian retention if I put it back at 15 degrees from 23 now?

      As always thank you for any advice

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    9. #9
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Thanks for the update. Yes, they can sure fake you out at times with all the splashing, perhaps if the female is not quite ready to lay eggs.

      Those water conditions, while not ideal (due to the ammonia), don't sound bad enough to prevent spawning. Some females get ready before others, so changing one out may help if she looks like she is carrying lots of eggs and is feeling well. [Looks like a challenge just catching them in that big pond.] I also wonder if your cooler source water will keep your females from getting ready very fast.

      1) How long does the egg laying process last? I'd say about 3-5 hours for larger koi.
      2) and spawn it in general? The foreplay before egg laying might take as little as an hour or go all night, depending on how ready the female is, how aggressive the males are, water conditions ....
      3) Should I keep them at 23 degrees without giving food for 10 days? I thought it was quicker That temperature sounds good. 20-23 C is a good range, though they can spawn outside of that. I always keep feeding mine. Some others say to stop feeding.
      4) Can the males spread the seed even if the female does not spawn? I don't know. Not sure if they can tell if she's laying eggs.
      5) Can males be used in reproduction more times in the year? Yes, I think they recover pretty quickly.
      6) Do I have to acclimatize them in a plastic transport bag before putting them back in the pond at 15 degrees? for how long? I suspect you should acclimatize them in some way when going to cooler water with that large of a difference. I would be a little concerned that the bag could decrease temperature too fast with that large of a temperature difference. [I once lost some koi that way, but the temperature difference was considerably more.] If it were me, to be safe, I would put the adults in a tub of some of the warm water, then pour in a little of the cool water every few minutes for at least an hour, maybe two, until the temperature was pretty close to the pond temp, and then move them to the pond.
      7) Does the female risk ovarian retention if I put it back at 15 degrees from 23 now? I don't know, but I suspect she would be okay.

      Hope this helps. Good luck, and please keep us posted!

    10. #10
      dragonfly1976 is offline Senior Member
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      I see an empty pool with nothing for them to spawn on. Do you have any spawning ropes or something they can lay eggs on? Sometimes they won't spawn unless there is something to lay the eggs on. There are lots of diy ways to make spawning material on koiphen here.

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    11. #11
      giacopuzzi is offline Junior Member
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      I have put back in the pond the female that was not active and one male. I have done a massive water change tonight. We well see tomorrow.
      But if all the males where chasing only one female my guess is that that female was ready whilst the other not.
      Then something should have happened. Anyway I will retry cooling the water and reshuffling the couples a little bit.


      dragonfly1976, you cannot see the 3 spawning ropes because they are in the shadow under the pool cover. I am not shure it was a good idea putting up the cover though.

      Thanks a lot for the help. It is my first attempt so your advices are very welcome. I will keep you posted.

    12. #12
      giacopuzzi is offline Junior Member
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      Back from holidays I made a new attempt.
      I put on monday 11/7 in the intex clean water, 3 spawning ropes and the female and the 3 males of the last attempt. Pond water 19 degrees and intex water 25 degrees. I have a small but continuous water change with garden pipe.
      the temperature has also dropped to 22 degrees in the intex during a rainstorm.
      On the 13th of july I put other 4 carps (I do not know the sex) in the intex.
      Until now nothing has happened.
      Below the picture of the situation.
      Today the temperature is 24 degrees in the intex.
      Tomorrow morning, however, I will put all of them back in the main pond and I will try with other carps.
      Other tips?
      If I put a shelter over the brushes would it be better?
      I noticed that the dirt they produce accumulates on and under the brushes. Is That a problem?
      I remove it with the pipe once a day.

      thanks for any help.

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    13. #13
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Those temperatures sound okay. I would not think a little dirt / debris on the brushes would be a problem, especially if you rinse the off every few days and net out some of the gunk off of the bottom.

      It is hard to judge koi size from the photos, but comparing the new photo to the earlier photo of your main pond, it appears the 7 koi in the tub are smaller and younger than several of your others.

      Young koi can spawn. You just don't get very many eggs. So using koi that are at least 3 years old and over 40 cm (16") tends to work well. I think the pros use very large koi to get huge numbers of fry. When you select your others to try, you might get one of your larger plump, eggy looking females and at least two larger males to produce more fertile eggs when they do spawn.

    14. #14
      giacopuzzi is offline Junior Member
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      It does not seem from the picture (the intex is 366 cm diameter) but those are the biggest i have 40/50 cm 10 years old.
      the next ones will be 25/30 cm 10 years old and one of them seem full of eggs to me.
      I noticed temperature changing from 22 to 26 degrees in the same day sometimes.
      Moreover I am not feeding them while they are in the intex.
      Maybe this is the problem...

    15. #15
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Okay, so 40/50 cm is big enough. The newer photo helps show their size better. The 25/30 cm (10-12") is small for a spawn, but okay if you don't care if you don't get a whole lot of eggs. [That size and age helps show that the cool water really affects size.]

      If you partially cover the intex in some way to provide some shade, but not blocking ventilation (breeze), it may help prevent such large temperature swings and reduce stress.

    16. #16
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      Update.
      Sun 16/7 I moved the 8 big carps from the intex to the pond.
      At the same time I moved from the pond to the intex the 6 smallest.
      Today, 18/7, they started spawning but I found that the smallest is the only female in the intex and the other 5 are all males.
      In order to avoid damage, I put the little female in the quarantine tank and released other 2 carps of the intex in the pond.
      Then I moved again from the pond to the intex 4 of the bigger ones (my second set of which I do not know in full the sex).
      There was a bit of shaking in the intex (suddenly stopped).
      Even in the pond (19 degrees) there was a bit of movement but then everything stopped.
      And now we come to the top of the mess I made.
      At about 7 pm I thought about putting back the little female in the pond with the result that everyone in the pond (or almost) started to push her. Now I've put her in the quarantine tank for her safety!
      When shall I free it? 2 days are enough even if in fact she has not spawned?
      If I fill in the intex with the water of the quarantine tank is it possible that there are hormones that will push the other carp to spawn?
      Lot of experience made but for now nothing good happened

    17. #17
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      I don't know whether your theory on pumping the hormones into the intex would work or not. It might cause excitement, though I am not sure if the males would know where to direct their attention. If you choose to try it, please let us know the results.

      As for putting her back into the main pond, what I was advised to do and have always done with success, is after my fish spawn, I put them in a tub of 0.3% salted (rock salt that has not been iodized) aerated water for about 3 hours. The theory being that the salt removes the smell of spawning from them. Then I put them back in the main pond. Sometimes there is some excitement in the pond when I do this, but it never has amounted to anything. However, I have not tried this with a female that has not yet laid her eggs. There is a salt calculator at https://www.koiphen.com/forums/koicalcs.php?do=calcsalt if you want to go that route.

      If you are interested in spawning the little female, you might try putting her with just your two smallest males instead of five males. Since she seems to be ready, it might work if you think it is safe given their relative sizes.

    18. #18
      giacopuzzi is offline Junior Member
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      I tried to pump the water of the quarantine thank in the intex but it didn't work.
      My guess now is that the daily temperature variations 22/26 degrees is not good for them (I noticed the the excitement twice when the temperature was 22 degrees).
      I will retry in september. August is too hot here.

      I will keep you posted.
      thanks

    19. #19
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      Quote Originally Posted by giacopuzzi View Post
      My guess now is that the daily temperature variations 22/26 degrees is not good for them (I noticed the the excitement twice when the temperature was 22 degrees).
      One other consideration might be to cover most of the intex with shade (such as a sail, shade cloth, or tarp) while still allowing plenty of air circulation. That would cool it some and reduce the temperature swings.

      I think female koi start to consume their unlaid eggs in late summer. I have never tried spawning koi in September. It might yield fewer eggs and allow less growth before winter.

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