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Thread: A little progress
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23-12-2018, 11:00 AM #21
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23-12-2018, 11:14 AM #22
Hiya, yes yours was from the crew of 2015, the sumi should hopefully return with lower temps and less feed, it will be a slower recovery process though in your soft water.. There are a couple of 2015 fish in my main pond, both have real strength in body and sumi.
looking forward to the 2019 breeding season. I’ve been promised the gift of a high class male shiro that did well at the AJKS, throwing this into the Showa set will open up the prospect of running a shiro fry tank alongside the Showa..
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24-12-2018, 08:09 AM #23
morning Dave. when you do this. the breeding and egg to fry. to growth of the fish. will you run a thread on the site. I for one would love to learn of your project. and Dave dreams come true. I have only brought fish on from 4 inch upwards. not at your level. but one day once I have learned enough. I would like to have a go. fascinates such as myself. and there is not a lot of info that's all together in one thread on this. all the best
fred.
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24-12-2018, 01:08 PM #24
Hi Fred
Yes one season I need to make a concerted effort in creating a diary.
For sure there are loads of ups and downs along the way.
It isn't difficult to raise Koi from eggs, the main issue comes from the sheer numbers of hatched fry that a spawning can produce. Whilst the more you have the greater the chances of finding that one magical fish the reality is that 99% of the problems stem from trying to raise too many.
50 or a 100 new hatchlings in a 75 gallon tank and its straightforward, you look at the tiny numbers in there and Mr temptation whispers in your ear; "add a few more for luck", you end up with a thousand..... then things get more difficult!
The spawning in 2016 was a golden year for me, it was all a result of a freak accident. Massive number of fertile eggs in the 3m square spawning net (0.5mm mesh) in a 1000 gallon tank.
The hatch started, but 24 hours later there wasn't a fry to be seen in the net. So it was clean up time, pulled the net and started draining the tank. Hour or so later with 6in of water left in the tank I popped back in to finish cleaning up.. Glanced in the tank and there were fry in there!
So salvage operation, grabbed another cage and caught what I could - maybe just 20,000 of which just 4,000 would be black (showa fry). Gave them a chance and things went on from there. I'd guess I lost 2-300,000 fry in the process. Of those 4,000 at day 1 there were circa 150 fish that were good enough to take through the winter.
(The escape was due to me returning water into the cage from the filters and creating just enough draw through the mesh to suck through the fry as they hatched.)
Did I learn? nope.... in 2017 I retained maybe 50,000 showa fry, the end result after 6 months hard graft was pretty abysmal, maybe 20 worth wintering.
School of hard knocks all right, I am still learning, my biggest issue is to supress temptation, dead easy saying it.
Dave
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24-12-2018, 01:25 PM #25
I know I could never breed koi myself. I wouldnt be able to cull any
Does make the hobby simpler for me since I can concentrate on one main pond2016 new 6000 gallon pond
https://www.koiforum.uk/pond-construc...ghlight=feline
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24-12-2018, 02:12 PM #26
Hi Davej,
Out of interest what do you do with the cullings once they've put on some size after say 3 to 4 Weeks?
I don't like culling even when they are tiny, but after 4 weeks when certain fish stand out due to their growth, colouring or agility etc I get attached to them and feel terrible deciding who lives and who dies especially when that call is decided by something as simple as a colour or marking.
I used to sell mine to local pet shops, but there's none left anymore and specialists or garden centres will only buy from their recognised suppliers.
I'd be happy to do a thread on my next fancy goldfish spawning if there's interest for it.... the first 4 Weeks are no different to a Koi spawning, except I tend to hand spawn them into trays, and usually try to limit to 1000 or so eggs of which 500 to 800 will hatch.
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24-12-2018, 02:46 PM #27
Hi
For Showa its a day 6 to 14 selection(The Kuroko selection) retaining the dark fry ; these represent about 20% of the hatched fry you get with a matched showa set.
After about 3-4 weeks it is selection out of deformaties. (You get a lot with Showa)
Beni and Shiroji starts to come through at 6-8 weeks, it is then the difficult selection on beni pattern. Getting this right is critical and it is far from easy.
I will sometimes find homes for a proportion of these, the rest take their chance in the wildlife pond. There have a massively better chance of survival than would have been the case had they not been artificially hatched and raised.. Never easy, but always best done sooner rather than later.
Dave
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24-12-2018, 05:22 PM #28
Cheers dave. Thanks for that.
It was brill of you to say that you would do a diary. I think you will get a great response to it.
Thats a great story. Love it.
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24-12-2018, 05:57 PM #29
I see Dave, thanks for the informative reply.
First 14 days are the same with Goldfish, cull on deformities. There's quite a lot (bent "spines" etc), and lots of fancies who come out single tailed.
After that culling is on the fins, fancy goldfish need divided tails and double anal fins which can be difficult to see up until 3 weeks but they're still small enough to feed to the adults.
Colours on metallic goldfish don't start coming through till 6 - 8 weeks (12+ for slow developers or in cooler temps) and by that time you've got really attached to your favourites which may be perfect in every way other than colouring. They're too big to feed to adults, and too many of them to try and keep. This is the painful stage if you can't find homes.
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