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Unexpected spawn
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Posted by aaron118 England (My Page) on Tue, Jun 21, 05 at 12:49
| Woken up at 2:30am to a lot of splashing, looked in my pond this morning to see thousands of little tapioca like eggs. These aren't koi carp though. I have three carp which are capable of spawning I think due to their size. They are 1 mirror carp, 1 common carp and 1 lovely ghost koi. I put the ghost koi yesterday. The common and mirror have been in there quite a few weeks now, the common isn't as big as the other two though. I have a feeling it was the mirror and ghostie that spawned. Anyway the fish have been eating quite a lot of the eggs but I have managed to get thousands (which are mainly attached to algae) and put them in this big tub I use for quarantining. It has a pump running not to fast but enough to keep it aerated, and the fry shouldn’t be sucked in it. Most of the eggs are transparent (which are the good ones I think) a few are white. I have read somewhere I should put in a bit of malachite green to prevent fungus growing on the infertile ones. How much malachite green should I use; just a little bit not the recommended amount and will this damage my eggs? I plan on buying a kiddies paddling pool within the next few days. So when the fry hatch I will transport them to the paddling pool and raise them in their what should I feed them and how much, I hear of something called brine shrimp. Would blended koi pellets to a fine powder be enough? Also how often would I have to do water changes? I live in England by the way, and would really like to raise some fish. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Unexpected spawn
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congrats on your first spawning! Sounds like all 3 had fun to be honest - provided your Ghosty came from similar water conditions theres no reason why it wouldn't be "in the mood" so to speak, in fact in commercial breeding they separate the sexes, raise the temp, then put them back together to stimulate spawning, which sounds exactly like what happened! OK - eggs, the truly clear ones and any white ones, will be infertile, the fertile eggs will be an opaque slightly beize colour, which will darken the closer to hatching they become. If you want to raise them the BEST first food is infusoria (they move on to daphnia etc after a few days)you COULD fiddle around spending days in complicated biological preparation for something they'll eat for a week and then move on from, or you could do as ive always done and just spend a couple of quid on the pre-prepared liquid ones you can get - it's not like they'll be on it for long anyway - remember - the first 3-4 days after hatching they dont need ANYTHING as they'll be consuming their yolk sac - once they reach the 10-15 day point i feed them on REALLY finely crushed FLAKE (not the pellets - they don't crush finely enough - just bog standard goldfish flake) - as they get bigger just de-crease the amount of crushing, till theyre up to about 1/2 " long at which point i'd switch to roughly crushed pellets. If at all possible i'd avoid putting them back into the pond wih the adults until youve got a nice weedy section for them to hide in, and they're about 1" long (growth depends on temp and food).
As for the malachite green - yes, it's great stuff for keeping down the fungus i use just enough to give the water a very light tinge - approx half the standard dosage.
Don't forget - you will NEED to cull if you are raising outside of the pond or you'll end up with THOUSANDS of fry, that you just don't have room for and will stifle the growth of the good ones - as cruel as it sounds i just pop them back in with mum and dad, and pretty soon they're a fish supper - the other most humane way is pop them in a bag, and freeze them - the fish go into hibernation mode, their brain shuts down, and they effectively die in their sleep. Lastly - Good Luck!!! |
RE: Unexpected spawn - P.S.
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| P.S. Water changes should be around 30% each week after the first fortnight after hatching - p.s. i always use a siphon with a piece of old stocking over the end of the hose to avoid sucking the little ones up and out!! |
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