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  • Results 1 to 11 of 11

    Thread: Failed Kohaku / Sanke spawn!

    1. #1
      Repsolkid is offline Junior Member
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      Unhappy Failed Kohaku / Sanke spawn!

      Hi guys
      I am sure there are many more experienced breeders out there than me that can help shed some light on these strange passed couple of days.... And maybe be critical and point out where I went wrong so next year I "can do better".

      I have flocked spawned koi from my pond for the past 4 years, and raised approx 100 fish, all very varied results, but having commons and mirrors in my pond too, the results have been odd. So this year I tried to up my game slightly and tried out some controlled spawning
      - Female 3 year old Sanke, Male 3 year old Sanke, Male 2 year old Kohaku

      Extremely successful (I thought). Spawned in an outside 1700mm diameter cut down holding tank, in about 12 inches of water, so approx 700L, 2 large spawning ropes.
      After spawning, removed the fish and connected the tank to my existing pond water system, trickle in/out about 30L/hr, to turn over the tank in a day.
      Thousands of fertilised eggs, and approx 2000 hatched fry!!

      Everything fine until last night, 3 weeks old, all look to be feeding well, underwater videos taken every day to observe them. Fed on egg yolk soup, and decap brine shrimp, plus just started some koi fry dry food. Water monitored via seneye sensor, ammonia 0.02, PH 7.7, nitrite and nitrate 0. Only thing to note is ammonia starting to rise slowly 0.05 today. But this is not high by any means, or maybe it is, and its something I need to understand better.

      By this evening, 2000 fry now down to approx 300!
      Did a squish of live fry under microscope and found nothing at all.

      I am assuming all fry will now be lost, so completely gutted.

      Did separate ammonia test to check on seneye sensor calibration, and it showed same result.

      Any help or questions for discussion could assist in next years attempt

      Many Thanks

      Nic

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    2. #2
      Orlando is offline Senior Member
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      Sorry to hear after 3 weeks they were pretty much in the clear but could you post a picture of the set up something is not clear, ph, temp swings to many unknowns to be able to offer some advice atleast for me.

    3. #3
      Repsolkid is offline Junior Member
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      Hi Orlando,
      Thanks for your reply. I will do some photos tomorrow to show what I've got.

      To add detail, here in the UK the temps have been moving about, so water temp moving from 19 to 23 over a few days this past week. PH fluctuates every day from 7.5 to 7.8 most days.
      I made a mistake as I've just tested nitrite again (1am in the morning here, trying to get to the bottom of this), these are showing much higher than I would like @ 0.5 to 1 mg/l

      I cannot think of anything else!
      48 hrs ago I was seeing so many feeding fry, this evening they are gone!! Quite incredible really!

      The only extra piece of info I can add, is that I treated my main pond with Cloverleaf blanket answer 3 days ago, and took the fry tank out of the system loop until yesterday afternoon, then turned the trickle flow back on. I cannot believe this is the cause, but I am at a loss now.

      Thanks

    4. #4
      delbert is offline Supporting Member
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      Have you checked for a tobi taking them out 1 by 1 ?

    5. #5
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Very sorry to hear. Sounds like you had something good going. Here are some questions and thoughts about causes ...

      If I understand the steps you have taken and your set-up, I only see one thing you mentioned that sounds like it could potentially be harmful to the fry. That is since it sounds like you have a flow through system with no other filter, the fry effectively had no filtration for a couple of days. And that might have made the nitrite rise to a risky level. Am I understanding that correctly?

      There is something I am not clear on. In your two posts, you mentioned, "By this evening, 2000 fry now down to approx 300!" and "48 hrs ago I was seeing so many feeding fry, this evening they are gone!!" Do you mean that they have disappeared entirely? Or that you are finding them dead?

      Is your water clear enough for you to clearly see the bottom? I am wondering if they could be just not feeling well and hanging out near the bottom, or if they are dead on the bottom. Or if as Delbert suggested, perhaps there could be tobi (extra large fry) hanging out down there eating the little fry, although that is some mighty fast damage for tobi to have done. Tobi are a problem in lots of spawns, but probably would not have done this.

      While I am not familiar with the "Cloverleaf blanket" treatment that you mentioned, I wonder if whatever pathogen you were treating your main pond for, could have made your fry sick?

      Not likely, but I wonder if your water supplier could have introduced a new additive such as chloromine, which seems to affect smaller koi faster than larger ones.

    6. #6
      pondfishguy is offline Senior Member
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      I breed in very controlled environments so just thought I'd share an observation that is consistent every year.
      At some point (often several times) there is a large episode of infant mortality. This year I raised fry in 5 separate ponds/tanks and it happened in all of them on the same days. It varies from day 21-45, this year it started on day 40 when fry in all the tanks would start dying.
      They get different foods and all have different filtration systems so I have to believe it is genetic. Water quality always checks out fine. Temps ranged from 65-78 deg (indoor/outdoor tanks)
      My losses range from 10-20% of the total. After day 60 there are no visible floaters, but the tobies may be eating them.

    7. #7
      Repsolkid is offline Junior Member
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      Hi,
      Thanks for your response

      Very frustrating and quite depressing!
      Ok, so to answer your questions Matt24.

      Yes, affectively I turned off the filtration system for 48 hrs by taking the fry tank out of the whole filtration system loop, but the water is constantly being monitored so I had no real concern (at the time). Its quite a lot of water volume for the amount of fry, and I knew they weren't adding too much to the ammonia levels at this stage.

      Yes, when I say "gone" I mean dead, and to see so many dead fry at the bottom is very disheartening!

      I have an update, and some advice for myself for next year:

      - Most of the fry are now dead, I would guess maybe 50 left!
      - The female Sanke had not seemed to be fully recovered since the spawn, eating, but quite sulky, and not very active, and to make this whole experience worse, she died yesterday morning, and after a scrape, she was riddled with Costia, and Skin flukes!
      - I did several more fry squishes of dying fry and found Costia in 2 out of 5!

      I should of checked and treated the parents before spawning, but this never occurred to me! I think this has resulted in the loss of what looked like a fantastic controlled spawn!

      So notes for next year:
      Create a separate filtration system for the fry tank, and do not interconnect with existing system. You are adding risk of cross contamination!
      Medicate parents before spawning or at least check and double check for parasites
      Don't get too excited when you see so many fertilised eggs, and the huge numbers of subsequent hatched fry

      Thanks
      Nic

    8. #8
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Quote Originally Posted by pondfishguy View Post
      I breed in very controlled environments so just thought I'd share an observation that is consistent every year.
      At some point (often several times) there is a large episode of infant mortality. This year I raised fry in 5 separate ponds/tanks and it happened in all of them on the same days. It varies from day 21-45, this year it started on day 40 when fry in all the tanks would start dying.
      They get different foods and all have different filtration systems so I have to believe it is genetic. Water quality always checks out fine. Temps ranged from 65-78 deg (indoor/outdoor tanks)
      My losses range from 10-20% of the total. After day 60 there are no visible floaters, but the tobies may be eating them.
      Sorry to here that. It's amazing that the same thing happens in so many different systems and spawns. I've done one spawn in each of the last 9 years, and fortunately, I have not seen that happen. But I one had something worse in 2014, something that slowly killed 99% of the fry, just a few each day, over a period of months. And I never figured out what it was. But thankfully it was only once. Also long ago, before I was as serious about this, I had an entire spawn of 4 day old fry die at once. So even now, like Repsolkid indicated, I try to manage my expectations in those early days, knowing they are so vulnerable.

    9. #9
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Thank you for your answers Nic. Very sorry to hear of such large losses, and especially the female.

      Quote Originally Posted by Repsolkid View Post
      ... The female Sanke had not seemed to be fully recovered since the spawn, eating, but quite sulky, and not very active, and to make this whole experience worse, she died yesterday morning, and after a scrape, she was riddled with Costia, and Skin flukes!
      - I did several more fry squishes of dying fry and found Costia in 2 out of 5!
      Very good work on your investigation and finding what happened. I am not sure about treatments on such small fry, but whatever you do, I hope your 50 pull through. Maybe you'll get a couple of nice ones yet. I have not lost any oyagoi from spawning, though a couple of times, they were not feeling well and would not spawn.

    10. #10
      Repsolkid is offline Junior Member
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      Update - 6 weeks old

      Hi guys
      A quick update..........

      Still have approx 40 fry remaining. So now 6 weeks old. Some nice ones starting to show, although its early stages yet, so no idea what will be produced.
      The "wipe-out" seemed to have stopped, and I treated the whole main pond again for skin flukes using "fluke solve", and put in a very diluted version into the spawn tank too just in case it might help save a few.
      Whether this is the reason the die off slowed down, or whether I am down to the survival of the fitness I'm not sure.
      Either way, maybe I'll end up with a few decent fish in the end!!


      The skin flukes really took their toll on the whole pond this year, I've lost quite a few fish, plus the really nice female parent. So I will now add fluke solve every spring and autumn as a matter of course! And definitely prior to any spawning time. So maybe every mid-end May here in the UK.

      Koi keeping is a constant learning curve, but add in Koi breeding and it's a massive new level of patience and understanding!

      I will hopefully be able to add to this thread over the coming months and maybe even share some photos of the 2020 spawn as they develop!!

      Cheers
      Nic

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    11. #11
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Quote Originally Posted by Repsolkid View Post
      I will hopefully be able to add to this thread over the coming months and maybe even share some photos of the 2020 spawn as they develop!!
      Hope so!

      Quote Originally Posted by Repsolkid View Post
      So I will now add fluke solve every spring and autumn as a matter of course! And definitely prior to any spawning time. So maybe every mid-end May here in the UK.
      Just a comment: In 25+ years of keeping koi, I've never needed to treat my pond for flukes. Also, I once asked an old koi farmer who was also an ichthyologist how often he has needed to treat for flukes. He said he could count the times on one hand. And he had many ponds for multiple decades.

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