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The breeding of Japanese koi began for me with a large pond of five thousand gallons. Early in the spring I had purchased a dozen small koi, each about five inches in length, and introduced them to the pond. After floating the bag in the water for about one hour, and adding water from the pond to the fish bag about every fifteen minutes, I released them into the pond. The water tested out as being very stable over the course of weekly water testing. The koi where feed in a much different way than you are used to feeding tropicals. Following is the schedule for feeding koi. First thing in the spring, as soon as the water temperature passes fifty degrees Fahrenheit, you start feeding once a week with green vegetables. When the temperature passes fifty five degrees, start feeding once per day, rotating every other day between the greens and a low protein pellet such as wheat germ. When the temperature passes sixty degrees, feed twice a day the low protein pellets. When it passes sixty five degrees switch to a high protein pellet three times a day. After seventy degrees you add a fourth daily meal of greens. Between seventy five and eighty five degrees feed five times a day with the first and last meal being greens. Stop all food if the water temperature passes eighty five degrees. Use the same method but in reverse as the temperature starts to drop in the fall. One of the problems you will encounter in a pond that is exposed to full sun like mine, is the constant threat of algae blooms. One of the best methods for combating this is to make sure you have a lot of the surface covered with floating plants such as water hyacinths (Eichhornia crassipes) and water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes). Water lilies (Nymphea spp.) are also good to have as long as you are willing to fertilize them on a regular basis. This way you will also get the bonus of many gorgeous blooms over the course of the summer. The roots of the floating plants hanging down in the water make a great spawning site for the koi. Water changes where done at a rate of once per week, consisting of around twenty to twenty five percent at a time. When you do these water changes use the water you take out of the pond to fertilize your lawn and gardens. Unlike ice cold tap water, it is a perfect temperature and is chock full of some of the best natural fertilizer you will ever get. You are then conserving water by reusing the water from the pond instead of just letting it run down the driveway. Use fresh water to top up your pond. It took two years of this regimen for the fish to gain substantial size. In the spring of the third year is when the spawning began. Not long after the feeding started for the season and the pond temperature started to climb the koi became very active. The males started vigorously chasing the females all around the pond. At this point it was time to do a water change. A thirty percent water change was done to simulate a rainy season (the same as you would do with many tropicals) in the hopes of stimulating the spawning activity I was hoping for. This did the trick as the desired activity started that very same day. There was so much action going on with all the splashing around that it looked like the pond would loose so much water it would be necessary to top it up again. This activity seemed to last for days. When it stopped it was necessary to do another water change because of the large increase in ammonia caused by the spawning. It took a while before you could see the tiny fry swimming around the pond. One good thing was that you do not have to feed the fry as nature takes care of that for you. But it was not until the following spring that I was able to get any of the offspring out of the pond. The only way this could be done was to take the water level way down, take the adults out and place them in a child’s wading pool, and then drop the water level to a couple of inches and net them out. I placed them in a thirty five gallon tank on the deck in the shade so the water would not heat up too fast. While I had gone this far I emptied the rest of the pond, pressure washed and refilled it. A couple of days later the adults were returned to the pond and I was back in business. Koi are not that complicated to spawn. If you have the room and would like to add a water garden to your yard, just make sure it is as large as you can or are willing to go and as deep as possible. You can leave them out all year round and by doing so you should have very little if any trouble spawning and raising your own koi. It’s different and fun to do, so go ahead and give it a try.
Article Source: http://www.articlefishtalk.com
Bernie Forsey (reprinted from the October 2006 issue of Tank Talk) www.dras.ca
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