I set up a light, its 10pm, moon will be up around 3 am.
I set up a light, its 10pm, moon will be up around 3 am.
8/31/18 the moon came up earlier then I thought, around 12am, and the fluorescent light did not trigger any spawning behavior. Also the ammonia I poured into the blue tank did not clear yet. The water parameters in the breeding tank is all good, I'll try placing some ice containers that I froze last night in the planter this evening without any water change.
Last edited by Roger; 08-31-2018 at 08:34 PM.
I've never used the ammonia approach to cycle newer tanks, I use filter material with bio media and water from the same system to start up a different system and that's worked for me well, lets hope the temperature triggers the spawn am thinking about an attempt in the fall was looking at one of my ladies today and noticed she's got a load, we will see how it goes but I wish you and your koi a good evening.
Last edited by Orlando; 08-31-2018 at 09:22 PM.
I've never tried artificial methods, either like the above or like the examples below. Have you ever tried or considered this method?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JqKNdRr8xc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_XEpmsC4is
Hopefully they will just get in the mood.
Am just wondering here what's your elevation, if your up in the mountains your temperature should be cooler in the early morning but if you're at lower elevation the water temperature might not be to the licking of the koi.
Matt, I bought the $3.95 ebook from the professor at KSU University. The hard part to me is injecting the female twice in 10 to 12 hour interval. Poking a hole in the stomach each time scares me. Males are shot once full dose on top of muscle area. The math for figuring out the doses by weight of koi is kind of hard to understand because it is in KG or ml and not in pounds, ounces or teaspoon. It would be easier if he had broken it down into tsp. My koi weighs 8 and a half pounds, what type of person says my koi weighs 4 kilograms.
I did a search for anesthetic, Tricaine-s was unreasonably expensive in comparison to clove oil, so I continued my search until I found a good chemical based anesthetic on Kodama website for $20, but Hawaii isn't listed on list of states, so I will call them before I pick up my 2017 Sakai Kohaku, sex unknown. I always wanted a Sakai koi because they bought the legendary Loran for breeding from Ogawa. This is a rare breeding video on Loran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAicdzwxOvY
Last edited by Roger; 09-03-2018 at 03:46 AM.
The ammonia cleared in the 300 gallon blue tank, it took 3 days. I hit it again with 3 cup of ammonia, I'll stop adding when it cycles in one day. I am not concerned about nitrite, the nitrite eating bacteria will eventually catch up in a month or two. Hopefully it cycles before any fry is born, that way the death of my female koi may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
Last edited by Roger; 09-08-2018 at 12:49 AM.
Making saline solution for koi sperm. One cup distilled water to one teaspoon of sea salt. Boil salt in water to melt and sterilize. Reference https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-mak...olution-608142.
Kano koi farm uses a distilled saline water solution to inactivate the sperm, it reactivates when dispersed in fresh water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5UzgpM9-uM
That's a good reminder, water spraying over the surface. It's easy to forget that can help. I had mine gently misting over the whole pond this year. I don't know if that was key, but it worked out.
Roger, please correct me if I am mistaken: The induced spawning injections and the sedation egg stripping are steps in two separate spawning methods correct? I mean, there is no need to inject a koi with the sedation egg stripping method, unless injection is the way you choose to sedate them right? (I've never tried either.)
Matt, you are right. One inject hormones into the koi to stimulate the female eggs to mature with two doses 10 hours apart and to stimulate the males to produce more sperm with one injection. The other way is to just wait for them to spawn naturally with out injection and then sedate the male and female. I have tried collecting some left over eggs from females that drop eggs in isolation with out males present and then grab a random male from another tank and took out its sperm, but they never hatch. I think the males weren't ready, I see some sperm but not a whole lot or maybe I needed to put the sperm in a distilled/saline solution before mixing it with the eggs. I know when a pair is ready to spawn the males give more milt than a male without spawning activity.
If you have a show quality koi over $5,000, hand spawning is safer.
Last edited by Roger; 09-09-2018 at 11:39 PM.
I took out the spawning rope and fed them, today. I'll try the showa's sister next, she is a shiro utsuri. I have her in a bacteria bath, the tip of her dorsal fin is broken and she has a few minor reddish dings.
Okay, I think that clears up the fundamental difference in my mind:
(a) The hormone injection method is a way to get the spawning to happen.
(b) The sedation and egg stripping method is a way to "spawn" the koi more safely (if done correctly) and perhaps with higher fertilization rate. But it is not a way to get the spawning to happen, because the koi have to be starting to spawn in order for you to do the sedation and egg stripping method.
Thanks for clearing that up for me. Hope your koi will get going soon.
This is a brother and sister shiro utsuri of the showa. The female utsuri is fatter than her showa sister. I think when the stomach is fat and the belly button is puffy red they are ready. I just started noticing the difference.
Something interesting happened with the water in the blue tank. I took a nitrite reading a week ago and it was very high, now its completely gone and I have been dosing three cups of clear ammonia every three days. The nitrite eating bacteria is ahead of the ammonia eating bacteria, nitrite will clear before ammonia. This is the first time this has happened to me. Maybe something is wrong, I put more than 3 cups of ammonia, possibly 4 cups. It was the last remaining of the gallon bottle. It could have been too potent. Its taking longer to clear the ammonia this time around. I hope I did not wipe out the bacteria colony. The ph was a neutral seven.
Last edited by Roger; 09-10-2018 at 01:12 AM.
I think I figured it out,the bacteria utilizes 7.1mg of KH for every 1 mg of ammonia removed. It continuously depletes KH, so it needs to be restored with microlift/KH bio-active booster. I gradually put in about a gallon of ammonia, in about 250 gallons of water with no water changes. This would deplete the KH and throw off the nitrification process.
Ok, it was the KH, I took a reading the next day and the ammonia cleared. Now, the nitrite bacteria is trying to catch up at level one, so the rate at which the ammonia eating bacteria excretes nitrite is a little faster. This is what I am use to seeing at the beginning stages. I won't add anymore ammonia, the tank has cycled. I'll let the duck weed enjoy the nitrate.
I got another delivery for daphnia magna from ebay. The other one I got on line was a rip off, nothing grew. I hope I get at least a few on this try. I am using spring water this time around.
All I need now is fry, hopefully everything lines up before they are born. In the past, it has always been last minute, bio filters weren't cycled, and daphnias weren't grown in advance.
Last edited by Roger; 09-11-2018 at 07:07 PM.
Wow that's a precision process you have going. Mine is far simpler, with a mature pond and filter that runs with fish in it all the time. I just buffer the water up with baking soda, and check it every few weeks or after a big rain.
Hope it works out. If all else fails, you can grow them on blended seafood and pulverized koi pellets. Hope they make some fry soon!
I will take out the males and fast the females. Hopefully, they reabsorb the eggs. I will try my white red eye kohaku female next. It drop eggs in isolation about a month ago, but she look fat.
I think the 1500 daphina eggs I bought from ebay is another scam. It had a lot of negative reviews, I should have checked. I am trying two other suppliers from ebay with good USA reviews. One is from Thailand, and the other is from USA. Its ironic that the one from Thailand has free shipping and the one from the USA cost $3 for shipping. However, the one from Thailand may take a month to arrive and the one from the USA should arrive with in two weeks.
Matt, I am growing duck weed in the blue tank. If I put koi in, they will eat all my duck weed. The water is saturated with nitrate, so I don't need to add any ammonia until it clears. The fry may be able to consume the duck weed if I put it in a blender. I will freeze them to build up my supply. This article says duck weed has 43% protein
http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd7/1/3.htm
Last edited by Roger; 09-14-2018 at 06:25 PM.
Do you have a large tank to start a culture of green water? That's all you need to feed newly hatch fry for the first two weeks I turn a light on at night over the tank and all of those little critters come up and the fry are feeding 24 hrs a day by then you can start the powdered koi food.
I saw this training video on ovaprim, it looks like something I can do. It will take me up another level. I just ordered some ovaprim, it cost around $41 plus $8 shipping.
https://pentairaes.com/10-ml.html
What I like about the procedure is they don't poke the female stomach, they inject the shoulder with only one shot. They insert the needle under the scale and puncture the flesh then they pull back the needle to create a small pocket then they inject the fluid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBA5yTn8_rI
Tricane is the only product licensed for fish anesthetic, its kind of expensive, I paid $125 plus shipping
https://pentairaes.com/tricainer-s-t...cs-ms-222.html
I also bought one hatching jar with hanger https://pentairaes.com/hatching-jar-and-hanger.html
Last edited by Roger; 09-15-2018 at 03:35 PM.