When I thought my Shusui spawn had failed(see other thread) , I ordered some Kohaku parents for a second go at it. They were delivered last week and seemed to be doing well the first day. I had the male in a separate tank and put the female in a 12x30 pool I had set up a week before. The next morning the female was displaying spawning signs....swimming in water flow, nosing around the edge of the pool, etc. I had hoped to wait a few weeks for the spawn as I had my hands full with the Shusui spawn, but I was scared that the stress of shipping and new environments might cause her to drop her eggs prematurely given how she was acting and the fact she looked like she was about to explode with eggs. So I moved the male over late morning. They seemed interested in each other almost immediately, although the female seemed to be pushing the male around the tank. I left to go get kids from school and when I came back there were eggs in sporadic places. The female still seemed to be the pushy one, which seemed odd. There is a plot twist coming so stay tuned!. After dark, the spawning seemed to become more typical. Thrashing against spawning ropes, the male following the female, etc... around 10pm it seemed to be subsiding and they switched to egg eating. I made the decision to move them over to my koi pond with the Shusui before eggs were eaten. I was not thrilled with the idea because they had only been quarantined for a few days, however, the only other system I had was where the Shusui fry resided and a pair of spawning 14" Kohaku would wreck that water in a hurry. So I netted the female first. There were no signs of eggs in the net or bucket so I felt this confirmed she was done spawning. I moved her over to the koi pond. Next was the male, but after releasing him into the pond I discovered eggs all over the bucket! There was no male involved in the spawn!
. It explained the odd spawning behavior. Well, almost immediately in the koi pond, on of my male Shusui started chasing the male(female) Kohaku around. I went and grabbed some backup spawning mops and threw them in. About 30 min. later there was proper spawning happening. A couple hours later the spawning transitioned to egg eating so I moved the mops over to the swimming pool. 12 hours later, all the swimming pool spawn was turning milky, confirming the failure. The Kosui spawn definitely has viable eggs but a fairly low percentage were fertilized. Hard to estimate how many fry might hatch but suspect around
Female Parent 100.
"Male" Parent
Spawning
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Originally Posted by Matt24
Of all the keys to telling males from females, the behavior during a spawn may be the best indicator (though in some situations, that may be too late). Some female koi maintain a slender shape even as they mature, and can be mistaken for males based on appearance. Not many, I'd say no more than 10-15% of them. So the light shusui may be female.
