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    Thread: 2021 Hariwake, Beni Kikokuryu, Kujaku spawn

    1. #1
      Matt24's Avatar
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      2021 Hariwake, Beni Kikokuryu, Kujaku spawn

      My koi have not spawned yet, but here is the Doitsu group that I put in the tub at 10 pm last night with 69 F water. They have been acting amorously at least since 6 am. It's now around 4 pm and cool, and we've been getting some light rain for the last three of hours or so.

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      I like the possibilities that you could end up with that cross

    3. #3
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      At 6:30 pm, they've been rather vigorous for about 2.5 hours. I confirmed there were some eggs on the ropes at 5:30 pm.

      I think all three of these were bred by three different local koi farmers within a couple of hours drive from here. This will be a test for breeding very mature koi, as these are all 12-14 years old.

      The Doitsu Hariwake female is 12 years old and 28".
      The Beni Kikokuryu male is 14 years old and 25".[Or would you call him a Kin Kikokuryu? He looked more yellow when he was young, but now seems more orange.]
      The Doitsu Kujaku male is 14 years old and 25".

      It's still raining lightly. They should be winding down before too long.

    4. #4
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      Other details: 5 days after full moon, though I have not seen that the moon phase matters a lot. Barometric pressure 30.11 and slowly falling, again just for the record.

      I had only put them in the tub at 10 pm the previous night, since I can't catch them out of my big pond during the day. This is about when I always put koi in the tub to spawn. But this is the first time they have spawned on the day right after doing that. They almost always wait until the next night or longer. Maybe it was the rain.

      These same 3 were in another spawn 9 years ago, along with two other doitsu males. There were quite a few crooked tail and spine deformities in that batch of fry. That spawn produced all scale types (leather, linear, fully scaled, and scattered). So I think her scale genetics are SsNn. She has a partial row of lateral line scales. The two males are leather, no scales on the sides, though the kujaku has a row of scales going down the belly.

      Time will tell, but similar to last time, I would expect all scaled types. Since she is SsNn and the males are ssNn, I expect 1/4 of the fry to die during hatching, as NN fry do. From the survivors, I would expect 1/3 leather (no side scales), 1/3 linear (lateral line scales), 1/6 fully scaled, and 1/6 scattered scaled.

    5. #5
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      In the ~23 hours from the time I put them in the tub until I removed them, the water temp dropped from 69 F to 63 F. Good thing they spawned when they did, or the cooler weather might have kept them waiting for several days.

      After the spawning, I used a 300 GPH pump to bring in water from the main pond for 2.5 hours while siphoning out at about the same rate (without lowering water level). I also backflushed the filter.

      If I don't get good koi from this, it won't be for lack of eggs. She really unloaded.

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      Orlando is offline Senior Member
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      Your work is cut out for you during these next 72 hrs keeping that excess milt and unfertelized eggs under control. But you're no rookie

    7. #7
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Yes, I'll have to watch it, as last time I spawned koi that large was in 1800 gallons, not 350. It helps having a mature filter. So far so good. The fertilization rate seems good, with many more tea colored eggs than white.

    8. #8
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      My hatched rate was not that good this year. I think I have enough for fun and tryout this year.
      What are your tips on feeding young fries? I don't have time to feed egg yolks every 3 or 4 hrs. I opt to live daphnia and brine shrimp. I can only feed 2x per day with brine shrimp and live daphnia would run out sooner or later. I also need to fee daphnia with yeast and green water. I think I need 10 day for the fries to grow up to a decent side to get fed on flake food.
      What are you tips to get it fast two weeks mark?

    9. #9
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      There are probably better ways to feed tiny fry. I don't always do it exactly the same, and who knows if I'll keep this plan for this year. It's probably not ideal, but it's easy, and it works for me.

      What I feed them:
      • Regular yeast, such as Saf-Instant, Red Star, or Flieschman's
      • Pulverized powered pellets (adult koi food). I run it through a little coffee grinder and then sift it through a net with very tiny holes so that only powder gets through.
      • A home-made frozen seafood mix that I call "Wombat paste" after an Aussie breeder that used to post here and shared his recipe, which was similar. I take canned seafood like salmon, tuna, sardines, mackerel, etc and blend about 75-80% seafood with 20-25% soft canned veggies like English peas, pumpkin, or Veg-All. I freeze it in plastic bags, and then break one up with a hammer as needed.

      How I feed them:
      • The day after they hatch I start feeding a tablespoon of powder with still 2 tablespoons of yeast, even though they are probably still just consuming their yoke sack. I figure, better a little early than a little late. I put it and some pond water in an old plastic bottle (that once held syrup), so I can squirt it in wet several times a day, and it sinks.
      • On Day 3, I step it up to 2 tablespoons of powder with still 2 tablespoons of yeast.
      • On Day 10 I step it up to 3 tablespoons of powder with still 2 tablespoons of yeast. I also start feeding about 1/8 cubic inch of the frozen paste twice a day. Think of a cube 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/2". Something about that size is 1/8 cubic inch.
      • As they grow, I increase the powder and the frozen paste and decrease the yeast. After a while, I don't grind the pellets quite as much, since the pieces don't have to be so small anymore.

      There are many other options that I have not tried. I know some like to buy tiny pellets made for fry or dried daphnia. Some grown their own daphnia of brine shrimp or insect larvae or use boiled egg yoke.

    10. #10
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      Yesterday, I replaced the 500 GPH pump with a 300 GPH pump to keep it from sucking in too many fry once they hatch. It was much warmer today with the water heating up from 64 F to 68 F. So I figured I'd better hurry up with step 2, which is to wrap the filter basket that I have around the pump with a double layer of cheesecloth. The cheesecloth provides a little smaller screen and breaks down within a few days. By then the fry are better able to swim to avoid the filter. Then at 6 pm, I saw the first hatched fry, 93 hours after the spawning ended.

      Below is the tub with filter and spawning ropes, a couple of shots of the eggs just before hatching, and a couple with fry just after hatching.

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    11. #11
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    12. #12
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      Most of the rest hatched last night. This morning, the water had clouded up with a light grey haze, even though the ammonia was still just 0.25 ppm. I'd shake a tassel on a rope and lots of fry would come out. There were some dead hatchlings too, which I suppose is from the deadly NN gene pair that 25% of fry from Doitsu spawns have. I've been changing water all day, removed the spawning ropes, and netted out a huge mass of hatched and unfertilized eggs. I used a net with medium sized holes to hopefully not catch many fry in the process. I fed them some yeast at times. Just after dark, ammonia is 0.1, 70 F, with many thousands of tiny swimmers. So far so good.

    13. #13
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      Congrats on your success! This is a very interesting pairing and I look forward to watching them develop. I also appreciate the detailed overview of your feeding methods - very helpful to hear what others are successfully doing to get large numbers of fry through the initial phase of life.

      Do you have egg fungus develop in your system? Just curious if the mature filter system prevents fungus.

      I'm also curious if you can actually see the fry eating the yeast/pulverized powered pellets? If they are surviving, then all is well, but again, I'm just curious if they are actively seeking out the yeast/pellet mixture.

    14. #14
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      Quote Originally Posted by spkennyva View Post
      Congrats on your success! This is a very interesting pairing and I look forward to watching them develop. I also appreciate the detailed overview of your feeding methods - very helpful to hear what others are successfully doing to get large numbers of fry through the initial phase of life.

      Do you have egg fungus develop in your system? Just curious if the mature filter system prevents fungus.

      I'm also curious if you can actually see the fry eating the yeast/pulverized powered pellets? If they are surviving, then all is well, but again, I'm just curious if they are actively seeking out the yeast/pellet mixture.
      Thanks Sean. After 5 days, they seem to be coming along fine, and the filter is holding the ammonia at about 0.2 presently. Though I did a good bit of cleaning and water changing early on. Included in this, I back-flushed the filter and saw a lot of dead fry, from the filter, but hardly any live fry. This is unusual this year, and I think it is from the 25% NN fry from all Doitsu koi spawns that die at hatching. I don't usually spawn Doitsus. But I knew the dead ones were getting through the cheesecloth to the pump. So I suppose the cheese-cloth isn't really doing all that much, but perhaps the vast majority of the fry are just avoiding the pump on their own.

      The unfertilized eggs do indeed develop fungus, and it seems to spread to fertilized eggs that they are touching. But I seem to get many thousands of fry anyway. I don't use any chemicals to combat the fungus. I know the mature filter is great for controlling the water quality. I don't know what it does to fungus.

      I think the fungus is greatly helped by having a higher percentage of fertilized eggs and by spreading them out as much as possible. So I almost always use two or more males. The only time I used just one male, he was substantially larger than the female. Also, I put in plenty of spawning rope in key locations, which I find is just below the surface all the way around the tub. I also put one around a pipe close to the bottom I figure if I put in more the number of fry would be even higher.

      I had an experience with poorly placed and improper spawning materials in 2016, my first serious attempt at having them spawn in a tub. Since the sides of the tub are not straight, I had ropes criss-crossing the tub in open water, which was ineffective, as the koi did not use them much. I also had some artificial leafy garland strung around, but found that the eggs did not adhere well to their surface. So tons of eggs, fertilized and not, wound up falling to the floor, not sticking to anything. Then due to the substantial circular current, a huge mass of eggs piled up around the pump basket, and became a mountain of fungus. Ultimately, I got less than 200 fry out of that spawn, and that's even counting the deformed ones, by far the lowest fry count I've had. So the type of spawning material and where you put it matters a lot.

      As for the fry eating the yeast and pellet powder, I can't really see them eating it at this age. I tried to today. The yeast just forms a cloud in the water, and I can't make out any particles. The powder I use is also so fine at this age that I really can't make out the grains once they sink. So thus far, I can't verify that they are eating it, but I can tell they are growing. So I think they are. I guess they could be eating algae etc off the sides. The water is not green, due to all the water changes and the shade.

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      Thanks Matt!!

      I'm still trying to become more successful with my hatching rates and survival during the first two weeks..

      I had a total loss this spring with a long awaited Kohaku pairing. The fungus was totally out of control. I typically see fungus, but it usually doesn't result in a total loss.

      I have another pairing this season and got good numbers, so not sure what exactly happened with the Kohaku spawn.

      I asked about the yeast and dust because I also have trouble confirming that they are eating. BBS is a completely different thing. You can easily see the fry activity eating and their stomachs getting bigger, however bbs takes a lot more effort to keep up with. the next pairing this year I plan to use bbs and supplement dust and yeast.

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      Quote Originally Posted by spkennyva View Post
      ... I had a total loss this spring with a long awaited Kohaku pairing. The fungus was totally out of control. I typically see fungus, but it usually doesn't result in a total loss.

      I have another pairing this season and got good numbers, so not sure what exactly happened with the Kohaku spawn.
      Wow that was some serious fungus. In the bad fungusy 2016 spawn, for several days, I thought I'd gotten nothing, until a few fry showed up. Amazingly, I still got one male ginrin showa out of that that turned out pretty good. Still got him. Hope we will get to see a thread for your pairing that did work out.

      I appreciate your good questions that have me wondering whether the fry are really eating what I am feeding them or something else. It's all good if they live, and they seem to be fine for now. But if they are eating something else, and I don't know what it is, that's not too comforting.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Matt24 View Post
      Hope we will get to see a thread for your pairing that did work out.
      Well, our entire family was called out of town for an extended period, but our neighbor volunteered to manage the fry. She seems confident, but I'm not expecting great results.

      When we return, I plan on two additional pairings, which hopefully I'll have better luck with.

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      I had a doitsu x doitsu spawning 6 weeks ago. I got a few hundreds that are bent at the mid section. Not sure if that happens often as this was the first time i spawned this pairing.
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    19. #19
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      Quote Originally Posted by Curio View Post
      I had a doitsu x doitsu spawning 6 weeks ago. I got a few hundreds that are bent at the mid section. Not sure if that happens often as this was the first time i spawned this pairing.
      I've seen that deformity too, and my experience is that it does not get better. In my observations, it does appear more often with doitsu, but I've seen it in scaled koi too. In general, I see a higher number of deformities with doitsu x doitsu. I've only crossed doitsu 4 times, so my experience base is not very comprehensive, others may have better information to share.

    20. #20
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      I can't say I've seen much of the mid-body crookedness, though there always seems to be some. I did see a lot of crooked tails the one time that I bred doitsu together. So far, these look pretty straight, but they are only 11 days old, and it's hard to see deformities until they get bigger.

      Also just because a pairing produced deformities in one spawn, they may not in others. I has one entire spawn ruined with head/face deformities. But the same adults spawned two other times without doing that.

      Here is a picture from 2 days ago.
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