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    Thread: First REAL Try - Doitsu Kohaku (F) & Kumonryu? (M) Sanke (M)

    1. #1
      HAMMATRON is offline Member
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      First REAL Try - Doitsu Kohaku (F) & Kumonryu? (M) Sanke (M)

      I have a doitsu kohaku female that has been spurting out eggs for the past 3 years, but I've never planned ahead enough in the past to really have a means to breed them. This year, I bought a 150 gal aquarium back in September and had 4 of my smaller koi living in it, in preparation for spawning day. I also made my own spawning brushes by taking two lengths of 1/2" PVC, cutting lengths of braided polypropylene rope, zip tied them to the PVC and de-stranded them.

      05/20/19 - Spawning took place. The Kumonryu(?) did about 90% of the chasing and bumping into the female, the sanke came in a bit toward the end. There are also a kujaku and doitsu kujaku that are of breeding age that may have got in there as well. Transferred small koi from tank to pond and pulled spawning ropes into the tank.

      05/23-Left for work in the morning, no fish. Came home from work that evening, thousands of fish! Pulled the ropes from the tank and placed them in a ~250gal pond by my front door. Did a pretty massive water change to reduce ammonia and vacuum out eggs - lost quite a bit of baby fish in the process.

      I will try to keep this updated. I am sure they will quickly outgrow their 150 gal home, so i plan to utilize the front yard pond as well as a 1,200 gallon inflatable pool that I have in the attic.

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      Mom and Sanke (Asagi is no longer in this pond)
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      Kumonryu and Kujaku - need better pictures
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      Kumonryu 4yrs ago when I first got him
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      150gal tank and DIY spawning ropes
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      Babies!
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      Last edited by HAMMATRON; 05-24-2019 at 04:08 PM.

    3. #3
      Hope J is offline Senior Member
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      Congratulations! Really pretty Koi!

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      Hope J is offline Senior Member
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      What do you expect to have and what will you cull for?

    5. #5
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Way to go! Sounds like your home-made spawning material worked nicely. Hope you'll keep us updated.

      Quote Originally Posted by HAMMATRON View Post
      ... Did a pretty massive water change to reduce ammonia and vacuum out eggs - lost quite a bit of baby fish in the process. ...
      For next time around, here is a trick that to get most of the egg debris out without losing many fry. Fill a medium sized ice chest or similar sized container to about 4" with pond water. Instead of a syphon, use a fine net to dip up a main batch of eggs. Very gentle put the batch of eggs in the middle of the ice chest. Then very gently wave your hand over the batch of eggs. The idea is to get most of the fry will swim away to avoid your hand, but since you've moved so gently, you have not disturbed the eggs much. Then use the net to dip out the eggs while most of the fry are away from them. Then release the water from the ice chest back into your nursery pond or tub. Repeat this 2 or 3 times until you've gotten most of the eggs out.

    6. #6
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      Instead of a vacuum, I use a four foot long one inch pvc, stacked with a small piece of 3/4 pvc and 1/2 inch pvc on top, so that my thumb fits over the 1/2 inch hole. I could use a four foot 1/2 pvc instead, not sure why I ended up with a one inch siphon. I siphon out the accumulated poo on the bottom, using the air release pressure, into a 5 gallon white bucket, and then use a net to rescue the fry that got sucked in. This works fairly well when they get a little bigger, I tap the bottom with the pvc pipe to scare them away from the muck that I want to siphon.

      I feel your pain when losing some fry, but it could a blessing in disguise. Too many fry in a small enclosed containment may not be a good idea.
      Last edited by Roger; 05-25-2019 at 09:42 AM.

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      Matt/Roger - Thanks for the tips-n-tricks on the water changes. I actually ended up putting a pool skimmer net at the outlet of the vacuum for the last 10min or so and ended up saving ~100 fish, so your advice makes sense.

      I'll keep updating with pics every so often when big things happen. It's only been 5 days since spawn, 2 days since hatching, and 90% are already swimming on their own. Time to start feeding soon.

      Hope - this is my first time, so i really don't have any real expectations. It's possibly far-fetched, but i'm really hoping to get some doitsu showa out of it. There is a showa in my pond as well, but i think it's still too young to have contributed

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      Day 7 after hatching
      Not much changing yet, water is relatively cold (70F) so they aren't growing as fast as expected. Also there are a LOT in a 150gal tank. Some organs are starting to show progress, a bit of their bodies turning yellow, and some of those little black circles for eyes are starting to turn to an actual eye color.
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      Quote Originally Posted by HAMMATRON View Post
      Day 7 after hatching
      Not much changing yet, water is relatively cold (70F) so they aren't growing as fast as expected. Also there are a LOT in a 150gal tank. Some organs are starting to show progress, a bit of their bodies turning yellow, and some of those little black circles for eyes are starting to turn to an actual eye color.
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      Those tummys need more food in them

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      Quote Originally Posted by Orlando View Post
      Those tummys need more food in them
      They really do! I've been trying to figure out the proper amount of food to keep them full, but not so much that it just kills my water metrics and filtration. I have been feeding them a mix of some egg yolk blended with water as well as taking my wheat germ koi food and pulverizing it into a powder.

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      Quote Originally Posted by HAMMATRON View Post
      They really do! I've been trying to figure out the proper amount of food to keep them full, but not so much that it just kills my water metrics and filtration. I have been feeding them a mix of some egg yolk blended with water as well as taking my wheat germ koi food and pulverizing it into a powder.
      Here's what I've been using for the past two years it's not cheap but am very happy with the results I have achieved will add a picture of a two month old koi that's right at 3.5" not highjack your thread but to show how they grow I do want to add my water changes are very frequentName:  20190603_204956.jpg
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      Last edited by Orlando; 06-04-2019 at 10:24 PM.

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    13. #13
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      That is some good growth in 2 months, and looks real good!

      This being my first year attempting it, and not really sure what my end goal is, I'm a bit hesitant to spend too much on fry food. However, the past two days I have been adding much more of the blended egg yolk than usual and water seems to be fine and they all have full bellies.... So i guess i'll keep going down that road and see how it goes. I would really like to separate about 40% of them into my fishless outdoor pond, but the temperature here in Seattle is still too low.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Orlando View Post
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      Wow!!!!! Gorgeous!

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      Jun 08 - Day 19

      Mosquitoes decided my tank was a fun place to breed, and while scooping them off the surface, caught a handfull of fish and decided to take a closer look at them.
      Still not growing much, except those massive eyeballs.... but they are starting to develop more color which was a surprise! Didn't notice the coloring while they were in the big tank.
      Currently feeding them a mix of egg yolk and I started growing brine shrimp for them this week. Still waiting for them to start looking like fish

      I also took about 100 of them and put them in a different "tank" (ie - coleman cooler lol) to see if less crowding would affect progress.

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    16. #16
      Matt24's Avatar
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      In the old photo, the kumonryu had some yellow on the face and pectorals (can't see if he still does from the angle of the newer photo). Perhaps some would call him a beni kumonryu. Whether he still has the yellow or orange now or not, he has those genes. Very nice stout build for a male. I take it the female is a doitsu kohaku right? Or does she have any black?

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      He did have quite a bit of yellow, his whole belly was also yellow. That has all gone away now and only the black remains. You are correct, female is doitsu kohaku, no black anywhere.

      Bad pic, but the only one I have of the dad from the side when I first picked him up at ~3.5 inches
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    18. #18
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      That is quite a bit of yellow, which may get passed on to some of the young ones, perhaps as orange for some. With a mix, it is hard to say what to cull other than to remove any whenever you see deformities or that look very skinny compared to the others. With doitsu fish involved in a mix, typically there are substantial number of the young, maybe 25% that will have scattered, messed up looking scales. But that is something that is almost impossible to see until the get a little bigger.

      Since you have kujakus in the mix, some little ones may be metallic or sort of metallic. You will probably get some that are standard scaled, some that are doitsu with no scales on the side, and some that are linear scaled, the doitsu type that have a row of linear scales down the lateral line. Some folks don't like those, but I am fine with it if the fish looks good otherwise.

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      Yea, I'm not really sure what I'm expecting to cull for. Mostly just planning to cull out any unhealthy looking fish and keep the healthy ones, regardless of color/pattern/scales and hand the ugly ones out to some friends :P I am interested to see what comes of them though.

      Starting to get a little curious how many will actually make it. They're growing, but still growing very slowly, even with water temp rising to ~75F, feeding sufficiently, and keeping ammonia to a minimum. On day 23 and the bigger ones are just now starting to look like tails are growing, but still don't look like "fish". Additionally, it seems the herd is starting to thin out (which may be a blessing in disguise), but it seems a lot of the dying ones are the bigger ones that were actually making progress.

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      Quote Originally Posted by HAMMATRON View Post
      ... it seems the herd is starting to thin out (which may be a blessing in disguise), but it seems a lot of the dying ones are the bigger ones that were actually making progress.
      It is not uncommon for larger fry to start eating the smaller ones and greatly reducing the numbers, something most breeders seek to avoid. Separating the larger from the smaller can fix that. But I take it you are actually seeing a few (not just one or two) larger ones dead (not just disappeared) right? If so, there may be an water quality problem or an illness. I'd suggest making sure you are treating to bind any chloramine (and at least rule that out).

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