Thought if any place would have an answer is where breeders hang out.
I have a 15 month old female about to spawn for the 4th time this year I have kiddie pools with fry ranging from 2 the latest spawn to 8" from the first. I have been able to get rid of most thankfully. The tramp is only days away again. I am not a breed just a hobbyist is there away to kill off the eggs or fry? The pond is only about 7500 gal. but draining it down again just to catch them all is something i want to avoid. Any suggestions. The other female also bred twice but thankfully looks like her parents put her on probation.
Thanks for any input
Yes , there are two, the one female had two spawns both of her spawns were within 2-3 days of the other females first two spawns all over a 8 week period maybe the warm early spring then cold mid spring triggered them. The issue is the larger female about 24" is on her forth spawn. Never worried about one spawn, simple one draining of pond clear fry out done, just never dreamed 4 spawns from one. I had a pond at previous residents and the female only spawned annually or not at all so it never was an issue and dealing with fry in that pond was easy only 1800 gallons and easy to get them out.
I am really looking just for a solution this time that may kill off while in the eggs or just hatched fry., so i do not have to drain the pond again. Water change of 10%-20% a week is no big deal I use a trickle that works great and adds about 25% of the total volume over the week allowing for evaporation. I would have to drain 5000 -6000 gallons again and is just something I want to avoid and is allot of work for a fourth time. That's 15000 plus gallons plus the 1800 gal or so weekly in change and make up water.....and here i go again . Hind sight i would have designed it differently, something I can seine net them without drain so much water, just didn't and don't want to be a breeder just enjoy there beauty. Also it is getting near summers end and giving away another batch will be hard to do I would probably have too cull them all anyways. Plus tired of kiddie pools in the yard.
Yes i did suggested getting rid of the females replacing with a similar male from the spawns. Well my wife to say the least, she was not having anything to do with that she has them conditioned so when she calls to them or is talking even if 10-15 feat away, they all come to the edge and she feeds them out of her hand and the one female actually lets her rub her sides without swimming away....so she is going to be hard to convince. Catching them is easy enough since so conditioned to come up and not afraid of us in any manor. I guess i can just get a large pool till she spawns, but my wife is afraid they wont come up anymore if i snag her , she might get hurt or something will get her in the pool.even if covered I know they are only fish but tell my wife that. Though if it happens again next year they will be gone.
Again just looking for a one time safe solution to rid the fry in egg or first hatch.
the first female by the way we saw she was carrying eggs we put yarn in pond she spawned both times on it and we kept the total fry found from her at less then 20 by just removing it, the big one for some reason wont spawn on it just releases and the eggs, are all over sides and end up having in filter as well. Tried vacuuming third time still ended up with 50-60 fry swimming around.
mops plain old cotton mops [looks like roots the fish will use them to lay eggs]
remove the mop and place in a bucket and change the water often [once or twice a day]
a small air stone will help
until you see little fish swimming