We will be giving away free KOI at the roundup. Lets make this a big affair and if it turns out good we can have it every year.
Dave's Roundup
I've got shubunkins, sassarass (I know I spelled that wrong), and koi mixed baby that I'll be bringing as well.
Well good grief....what's the secret to getting your fish to breed? I've been trying but to no avail....I have koi, sarassas, comets, and shubunkins....Is there a secret the 2 of you know that I don't?
MerryMary
MerryMary:
Fish & Koi generally breed once they reach about 6" in length. Male fish have wiskers. You can feel them if you gently touch their scales.
The female fish will lay her eggs and then the male fish will fertilize them. In the spring you may notice one fish that develops a large body and the male fish will chase her until she releases her eggs.
If you would like to better observe the process, place a black fiber mat in your pond--the white eggs will show up against the black mat.
Good luck and happy water gardening!
lilypons,
Thanks so much for the information...I've been searching the web trying to find out any information, even regarding the sexing of fish, but there's not a whole lot out there...Anything info you want to share is happily accepted.
I was told with the goldfish, they get bumps on their gill plates if they're males, but it kept showing fantails, which I do not have, due to their limited swimming ability, so don't know if that means for ALL goldfish/comet varieties, or......?
My larger koi does in fact have whiskers, so I will assume that one is a male, the smaller one I think is maybe too young to tell.
What a great idea to give away the little ones at your RoundUp...wish I could make it and grab one! I'm wondering what I will do with my koi when he gets too big and could have taken one of your wee ones, and given him to one of you who has a larger pond. Way back when, when I first started, I was told their size adjusts a bit, depending on the size of your pond. Mine is 8x9, 2 feet deep, and build between decks. Apparently the koi himself didn't hear of this old wives tail, and chose to grow. Although he's not jumbo yet, he's beginning to think about it!
:)
MerryMary
MerryMary--
Looking over our goldfish book collection, the only one that we have that addresses breeding of fish is "Goldfish & Koi in Your Home" by Dr. Herbert R Axelrod and William Vorderwinkler, published by T.F.H.
Publications, copyright date 1984 ; the ISBN number is: 0-89922-636-2
Happy water gardening,
lilypons
lilypons....Thanks so much for the information! I'll look to see if I can find it....funny thing is, hubbie is a marine biologist, but knows zip about freshwater goldfish!
:)
MerryMary
I was told the same thing MerryMary! I was told that the fish would grow to fit their environment. Fish in a small pond would stay small and fish in a huge pond would grow huge. Isn't that funny!
I don't know much about the size or maturity necessary for fish to breed but I know the water has to be about 70 degrees before they think about it. I always notice white foam when mine are at it. I also wonder if it is possible the babies are getting eaten by the bigger fish or other nearby critters. My new ones average out to about 20 a year after all the snacking going on and the casualty here and there (raccoon, heron, too close to the pump, etc).
Badseed,
How big/old are your fish? I have a layer of pebbles across the bottom and clusters of anacharis all over the one side of the pond. Is that maybe not enough for fish babies to hide in? I've really never even seen eggs. The water is almost always warm here in Orlando, it's only a 2 foot deep pond with heavier vegetation in the one end We don't have any random critters, the pond is in my subdivision backyard, inside a privacy fence.
MM
Have you concidered you may not have a male? It could also be the other way.
It is hard to tell them apart when they are smaller.
The female will develop a little wider in the middle than the male. so the male will be slightly thinner than her.
I went about two years without any eggs or at least any babys untill I actually knew I had gotten a male. Only trouble is he is mostly black so I get a lot of babys that I can't see untill they get some size to them.
Had another problem too I had Goldfish in with the Koi I noticed the goldfish seemed to really have a feast whenever the fish were spawining. Not as many Koi were eating the eggs as the goldfish.
Don't know how big your fish are. I have two that are 8 or 10 years all the rest are 6 or less. so the sizes range from 27" down Just last week when the pond was not ice covered I saw a couple 3" I have somewhere around 50-60 Koi of varrious colors.
Sorry I just had to wade in and see if I could help
Randb, has a good point. I haven't had much luck in getting fry either. My problem was over population of males. I see them chasing a female and pushing against the plants, etc.; but then they proceed to eat most of the eggs. I did change out plants from one pond to another one day as they were in the frenzie of seeking eggs, and had some hatch from those in another pond.
And I can say honestly, I have NO clue what genders I have....I know there are probably 8 shubunkins, 8 sarassas, 6 comets, and 2 koi....I was hoping there would be some kind of gender mix in a group that large. They range from 6"-10". I don't know their age, only that they are over 3 years old, since that's how long I've had my pond. Iknow that's on the small side for koi, but I think(?) that's fairly large for the assorted varieties of goldfish/SB/Sarassas?
Someone told me only the male koi get whiskers, anyone know if that's true? I'm in the process of building a 2nd small pond and can divide them, but would put a balance of male/female in each if I knew how to tell them apart.
MerryMary & others
Both the male and female Koi have doubble sets of wiskers at the edges of their snout or lips or whatever they are called on a fish. lol.
I had not heard of feeling their scales for wiskers, however I do need to clean out my pond this spring, as I did not do it last fall. I will check that out it would be great if we could just ask them ROLOL.
and yes we had a real( horney) goldfish that didn't care weither it was GF or Koi
he was there pushing her around. he did have the bumps on his gills.
Now that makes me think I had better check that out on the Koi too this spring as I will have to net them to do the cleaning, and cull some of the babys. It really would be nice if there were more ways to tell them apart
Maybe some one will jump in and let us all know for sure !
and I don't mean this the wrong way.....
but....
"gender pics" or anything related would be really helpful...I'm not like a fish perve or anything, but I'd rather know if I'm buying the wrong fish, or if something needs correction in my pond (like water quality or something) Could it be that I have 25 males or 25 females? And does anyone know if fish cross-breed? Shubunkins and comets and sarassas? I'm sure the answer would be no to the koi, but the others are so biologically close....just a thought.
MerryM
I do know that goldfish and Koi will cross.
at least the male gold to the Koi. You will get a very colorful gold fish that can reach a larger size. However they will stay with the same rule of the pond size.
I gave two to a friend of my wife here in town she has kept them in a 10 gallon aquarium for 2-1/2 years now. says there are doing fine.
I would have to look it up again to be sure, I think I read in one of the books I have that the Japanise perfected the color by crossbreeding goldfish with the original
plain ol Koi I will refresh my self on that. I will find that section in the book and double check.
Russ & Barb
PS I will also see If we can get a pic of the fish we gave Phyllis
Thanks R and B! I have seen a few of the fish nudging each other, so I was hoping(?) that that was a sign of things to come? I appreciate all of the information you are giving me. I have one beautiful pastel yellow butterfly fin goldfish. I don't know if it's a male or female, but would love to breed "it" with something, since I've never seen anything like it before outside of the butterfly koi. She's about 8 or 9 inches, and her/his fins are not fantail, but are normal, but very long and veil-like. ( I prefer to think its a "she")
Back to the book. on sexing Koi. Once again it is hard to distinguish m or f, when they are under 10 inches. The male is more slinder has longer pectoral fins he does develop tiny tubercles on the head and and pectoral fins principally along the bones of the fin rays. That is still dificult Right? well good luck
That was from the interpet encyclopedia of Koi.
Russ & Barb