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  • Results 1 to 18 of 18

    Thread: Feeding Fry Algae

    1. #1
      Koijazz's Avatar
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      Feeding Fry Algae

      I can't really afford to spend a couple dollars a day on feeding my fry and am wondering if the fry could get food off of string algae. I get loads of it in the summer and am wondering if I could just put some in with my fry along with maybe a few rocks also covered in algae. For a filter there will be a corner filter box covered with nylon to protect the babies. Is this possible? There are after all lots of micro organisms in algae. Any help would be appreciated.

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      koi4u2c is offline Senior Member
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      I have a limited knowledge with fry and algae, but here are some of the things I have learned.

      After one spawn I ended up with fry in several tanks/ponds. Some of the eggs ended up in a green plant pond and did not get fed any food from me.
      They grew better and faster than the young fry that were fed koi food. They could be seen constantly munching on algae and the plants. I assume there were microscopic organisms that they also fed on. I did not feed them for quite some time, since there was no filtration and they had good growth. I used it as a learning experience. No ammonia and no nitrite in the pond.

      I have also read new fry can consume too much algae and when the sun comes out and expands the algae growth in their nearly transparent guts, their guts can rapidly expand and burst = dead fry.

      Algae is supposed to be high protein. I believe it is sometimes very beneficial for the koi, both for their health and color, but it may also cause problems with PH swings and oxygen levels.
      Nancy



    3. #3
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      The fry are going to be raised in an inflatable kiddie pool in a chain link fence enclosure. There's a roof over the top where they'll be and on the side where the sun would shine and fry them there's cardboard hanging up to block the sun. Would the algae bursting in their stomachs still be a problem if there's no real direct sunlight?

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      koi4u2c is offline Senior Member
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      The fry that raised in my plant pond were unaffected by the algae and I did not seem to loose any.

      Another time I lost all fry, but it could have been attributed to other reasons. I had 2 sets of koi spawn on the same day. One in above ground tank and one in inground pond about the same size. Weather suddenly got hot, fish in tank hatched in less than two days, fish in ground took longer to hatch. Water went green in tank, but not in pond. Loss of fish in green water may have been due to the fact that they hatched too early or poor quality eggs. I could only wonder if the algae caused the loss.

      In raising fry, one thing is certain. You will learn a lot as you go. What works well one time, may not seem to work at all another time. I think most breeders continue to learn for years, if not forever.
      Nancy



    5. #5
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      I have another question about feeding fry, this time about hatching brine shrimp eggs. I have no way to heat the water to hatch the eggs in so I'm going to put the two liter bottles in the pool with the fry and hold the bottles still with rocks. Since the fry will be in water somewhere in the 70s so will the brine shrimp being warmed by the water. I know that if the water is in the 80s the brine shrimp hatch in 24 hrs. How long will it take for the eggs to hatch with water being the 70s?

    6. #6
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      I am not sure that algae filled green water is the best place to hatch fry or the correct habitat for them while they are still itsy bitsy, but I am reasonably certain that once the fry are big enough to eat powdered pelleted food, they generally do much better raised in algae tanks.

      Algae gives them plenty of food available at all times and several breeders have stated their fry grow faster, larger and declare their colors and patterns much faster if raised in an algae tank. I believe those breeders are also adding plenty of Koi Clay or a similar product to make certain the trace minerals are there for good color.

    7. #7
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      Hey guys I’m having a problem with free floating algae atm. I live in the Caribbean and my fry pool is in full blown algae bloom. The ph goes from 7 in the am to 8.8 by mid day. It’s definitely not a good idea when the fry are small to expose them to this kind of conditions. Out of around 5000 or more fry I have only remained with 300 or so after culling out all the deformities. Can anyone here tell me what are deformities caused by Poor water quality? Vs genetics?


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    8. #8
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      Quote Originally Posted by skurban2 View Post
      Hey guys I’m having a problem with free floating algae atm. I live in the Caribbean and my fry pool is in full blown algae bloom. The ph goes from 7 in the am to 8.8 by mid day. It’s definitely not a good idea when the fry are small to expose them to this kind of conditions. Out of around 5000 or more fry I have only remained with 300 or so after culling out all the deformities. Can anyone here tell me what are deformities caused by Poor water quality? Vs genetics?
      You might consider partially covering your fry pool with plywood, a tarp or whatever to shade it some and keep the algae more under control. Some is okay, but not that large of a PH swing as you know.

      Sorry to here the deformities have taken such a toll on your fry. But at least you have 300 left to watch develop. What varieties are they?

      Deformities can be tricky. I once used two males and a female in a spawn and got head deformities on 100% of the fry. Some people told me that it had to be genetics. But I used the same 3 koi in a spawn in another year and got very few deformities. I am not sure what else was so different.

      I typically get some deformities, but not all that high of a percentage. So it is usually not too bad. But in another spawn with different koi, there were a high percentage with crooked tails.

    9. #9
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      Quote Originally Posted by Matt24 View Post
      You might consider partially covering your fry pool with plywood, a tarp or whatever to shade it some and keep the algae more under control. Some is okay, but not that large of a PH swing as you know.

      Sorry to here the deformities have taken such a toll on your fry. But at least you have 300 left to watch develop. What varieties are they?

      Deformities can be tricky. I once used two males and a female in a spawn and got head deformities on 100% of the fry. Some people told me that it had to be genetics. But I used the same 3 koi in a spawn in another year and got very few deformities. I am not sure what else was so different.

      I typically get some deformities, but not all that high of a percentage. So it is usually not too bad. But in another spawn with different koi, there were a high percentage with crooked tails.
      They are Sanke x Benigoi spawn. I think it has a lot to do with water quality. When my water surface temperature went up to around 30 degrees Celsius, With that extreme high ph even the smallest amount of ammonia would have been very toxic. I have two options at the moment, I bought 50% shade cloth and I have a ground cover that is uv treated and blocks out 100% of the light. With the 50% cloth the light is still getting to the bottom but it’s not as intense. The ground cover blocks all light and only allows what I allow. Which do you think may be better?
      Male
      Male


      Female, the best picture I have off her.


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    10. #10
      pondfishguy is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by Koijazz View Post
      I can't really afford to spend a couple dollars a day on feeding my fry and am wondering if the fry could get food off of string algae. I get loads of it in the summer and am wondering if I could just put some in with my fry along with maybe a few rocks also covered in algae. For a filter there will be a corner filter box covered with nylon to protect the babies. Is this possible? There are after all lots of micro organisms in algae. Any help would be appreciated.
      I have fry in a green water tank this year and they are still about 3/4" at 52 days old. The ones I fed live brine shrimp are 1.5-3 inches.
      For rapid growth without supplemental feeding you need a large population of moving small organisms ( rotifers, daphnia, etc) in your pond. They do not take take to ground koi pellets well. There are lots of other threads with fry food recipes.

      You can hatch brine shrimp eggs in a bucket with an aquarium heater and airstone. I do 10 gallons per day and can assure you it works just fine with good aeration. I also have done the inverse bottle method for smaller quantities but find it much more laborious.
      You can get all the info you need at "brineshrimpdirect"

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    11. #11
      spkennyva is offline Senior Member
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      I've actually had really good results from grinding fish food. I start with 48% Protein / 18% Lipid 1.2mm pellets and grind them to dust with an old coffee grinder. As the fry grow, I modify the grinding to accommodate the larger fry.However, BBS is much better as the first food offered, but after the first week, I can successfully drop back to the ground fish food. Don't use poor quality food.

    12. #12
      pondfishguy is offline Senior Member
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      You have truly found koi gold dust. Are your fry outside in a pond? I hatch the eggs in an aquarium ( you can see my breeding threads). I have tried 60%, 55%, 50% starter foods from Hikari, Purina, Cargill, Skreeting, Rangen and others, ground to a dust with little to no success. I've also tried a variety of flake products (spirulina, blood worm, brine shrimp, ciclid, koi) also with little to no success. The list goes on... micropearls, decapsulated BS and some Hikari frozen foods. I'd love to know the name and brand you are using. I have great success with daphnia and bs for the first 2 weeks, then I convert to dry.

    13. #13
      spkennyva is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by pondfishguy View Post
      I'd love to know the name and brand you are using.
      I talk about the food I use here: https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showt...imal-Fish-Food

      For fry, I buy the Optimal Starter #2, which gets ground into dust for tiny fry. In previous years they sold it in 10 lb buckets, but now they sell it in 40 LB bags. It sure would be nice if they sold smaller containers...

    14. #14
      pondfishguy is offline Senior Member
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      TYVM. I've bookmarked it for next year. I'd love to have a pond full of fish that can take a 1" pellet. LOL.

    15. #15
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      Quote Originally Posted by pondfishguy View Post
      Are your fry outside in a pond?
      They are outside, but not in the pond. I have 6 100 gallon tanks with the capacity to feed pond water or trickle in fresh water. When I'm spawning fish, I run pond water. When I'm raising fry, I trickle fresh water (no pond water). I transition from pond to fresh soon after the eggs harden, but do so very slowly. So, each of the 6 tanks has fry from different parents. The water in the fry tanks is very clear, so there's not much to eat other than what I provide. When I say trickle, I'm talking about 2 gallons per tank each hour. Fortunately, I'm on well water, so no worries about chlorine.

    16. #16
      pondfishguy is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by spkennyva View Post
      I talk about the food I use here: https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showt...imal-Fish-Food

      For fry, I buy the Optimal Starter #2, which gets ground into dust for tiny fry. In previous years they sold it in 10 lb buckets, but now they sell it in 40 LB bags. It sure would be nice if they sold smaller containers...
      I just purchased 40#. We'll see if West Coast koi like it.

    17. #17
      spkennyva is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by pondfishguy View Post
      I just purchased 40#. We'll see if West Coast koi like it.
      I hope it works for you!

      So, as I mentioned, when using Optimal Starter #2 for the smallest fry I grind this to dust. The lipid content is such that it may cake in the bottom of your grinder. I have to stir up the mix a couple of times in the grinding process to get the everything to the "dust" level. I know its dust when I can rub it between my fingers and not really feel any particles. I use an old braun coffee grinder, but any coffee grinder should work. For larger fry, the grinding is much less. Once fry are about an inch, I feed them straight Optimal Starter #2 - no grinding required. They can eat this for nearly their first a year. In my big pond, I will occasionally toss in Optimal Starter #2 and even 30+ inch koi race to the bottom and eat it. BTW, Optimal Starter #2 is a sinking pellet.

      Also, once you have dust, you can add a tiny bit water to about a teaspoon of the dust and make soft fish food cakes. I roll the dough-like mixture into pea-sized balls and give it to the 1 inch fry. They love it. Also, I roll it into spaghetti sized strands about 3/8 to 1/2 inch long and drop them into tanks with fry 1+ inches. They totally attack these, almost like they attack smaller fry. It's interesting to observe.

      Good luck
      Last edited by spkennyva; 07-02-2020 at 12:31 PM.

    18. #18
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      Quote Originally Posted by spkennyva View Post
      So, as I mentioned, when using Optimal Starter #2 for the smallest fry I grind this to dust. The lipid content is such that it may cake in the bottom of your grinder. I have to stir up the mix a couple of times in the grinding process to get the everything to the "dust" level. I know its dust when I can rub it between my fingers and not really feel any particles. I use an old braun coffee grinder, but any coffee grinder should work.
      I also grind adult pellets with a coffee grinder (Mr. Coffee). I then pour and sift it through a small net to only let the powder through. I put the crumbs that won't pass through the net into another container to save and re-grind next time.

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