When I put out my goldfish after the winter the people at the pet store said that since I had them in an aquarium all winter they would not breed... wrong! They are laying eggs in the water hyacinth and the water lettuce so I check the roots every few days and transfer the stuff with eggs into another pond (the eggs are a favorite food of the goldfish). Anyway, when I picked up a clump of water lettuce I found a big grey/black newt curled up in it!! Pretty cool if you don't mind kind of squishy......... I put him/her down by the edge of the pond and hopefully will be happy here. :)
What's lurking in the lettuce........... ?
How cool! I wonder how many wee-fry you will end up with? Mine finally this year started to breed, but I don't think a single fry survived...and then a heron ate my larger "couple". I don't think the others are mature enough to breed.
I wonder if the newt found it's way there, or came with the plant, or ....? We don't have newts here, it's just too hot and dry...I'd love to find one.
Watch out if the goldfish start to breed i bet I have a thousand babies I'm trying to net them but those little guys are really fast. The ones from last year are already 4 inches long. I hate to do it but I think I'll have to put a predator fish in there to control the breeding these guys are much too happy.
Kim
That is amazing! I'm hoping to get to that point someday!
What kind of goldfish do you have?
Merrymary, be careful what you wish for!! It's hard to find homes for a gazillion baby fish. To cut down on the 'happiness' in my pond this year, I removed 4 male comets who appeared to be having just too much fun with my Lovely Lady Lily, the shubunkin. Things have calmed down considerably. I'll still have baby fish since I noticed lily has a tell-tale bulging belly, but having hundreds of baby fish to worry about is not very much fun. They are very cute, and then the cuteness wears off when the bioload in the pond goes up.
The newt sounds very cool!
Pixy, you can list them by the bagfull on ebay!
So comets and shubunkins cross-breed eh? Are the youngsters old enough to know what color they look like?
I started with six comets four years ago. Last fall we had to half drain the pond and removed over 100 with a sein net. We could not hand net them as there was just too much room for them to out manuever us. We have about 25 left and that is after accidentally catching 14 in the skimmer that were in the throws of mating this spring. A crude form of birth control is an underwater pond light on for a time after dark and some hungry koi. The koi would spot the fry swimming in the light and feast. It was kind of entertaining. But I would still like to remove the rest of the gang if I only could. Yesterday I climbed in wearing old clothes (with no fabric softener) while my husband stayed on the perimiter and herded them my way with his net towards mine. In an hour I looked stupid, cold, wet and had algae in my hair. We caught four and I gave up. No one wants them. There were several nicely marked ones and a couple with unusual flowing tails which we kept and put in a smaller pond more suited to goldfish. Odd since the original parents were all just plain orange 10 cent feeder comets from the pet store. No koi babies at all. Under ideal circumstances , and I suspect not so ideal circumstances, comets in a medium or large pond quickly can become a huge problem. Is there a trap that anyone knows of that will work for goldfish? Every time we go flailing around trying to net them we stress the koi. And me.
Try a minnow trap, I haven't tried it but it might work. Comets will breed 4 to 6 times a year depending on your zone. I have to thin mine out every year. I toss them in the big pond were sadly they are easy snacks for bass. I give many away but they are the rabbits of the water garden. I catch most of ours by laying a sein accross the bottom and leave it there after a while I slowly bring the edges out of the water to trp them then left the entire sein out. clearly this take two people. But I can new a few 100 at a time.
SO then.....are you talking about large water ponds....or the smaller man-made water garden ponds that the rest of us have a few fish in? Mine is only 2 feet deep (we don't get a freeze here) and 10x9....
Good idea Davart. Im heading for the bait & tackle place tomorrow. We have tried a sein net. It does work but the koi sometimes get caught in it and rip scales off thrashing around. You really educated me about comets. I had no idea they bred so many times in a season. No wonder I'm overrun. If only I had bothered to educate myself before I put them in the pond. Do I need to get a bass? LOL
MerryMary - The pond I have is 15 x 20, 3 1/2 ft deep in about one third of it. The goldfish just have too much room to out maneuver a net. And they can hide when threatened in the smallest places. If you can't corner them you just can't catch them.
Does anybody have an idea why they have bred some unusual looking offspring? I get red and white, white, orange and black and some just plain brown ones. A few have really long flowing tails. I swear they were all just plain orange comets when they went in the pond.
Snapple, that's what I'm especially looking for, the ones with the overly long tails...(Not fantails)
I had one for years, and it just died last week. Bummer.....
There really is very little info regarding breeding, so word of mouth here on DG is really helpful...
i have a bluegill fish in my pond, he totally is great for population control
this pic was taken last week befor i changed my UV bulb so please forgive the water clairity (also havent finished the rock work on the sides either :( )
Ohhhh, I love the guy right in the middle of your pic, with the long tail....What size are those fish?
that is Chagoi they are very friendly, I have 42 koi in this 4500 liner pond and like 10 gold fish and my blue gill. My fish range fron 4" to 36+" :)
here is a pic of some others
Wow anna....you have fantastic colors within your group! I purchased 5 butterfly koi, but only one survived....the rest of my fish are all shubunkins, comets, and sarassas, which are more weather tolerant. What size are the koi before they are old enough to start breeding? My 7-8 inch shubunkins and sarassas make the attempt, I just never see the fry very often in order to scoop them out in order to save a few.
actually koi are more weather tolerant. they usally have to be about 4-6 inches to breed or about 2 years old. Man if i let a spawn happen in my pond it would be crazy, fish are so rough when spawning they beat eachother up. this my only fish pond - pond, no plants in this one except for the trough in the water fall but none in the pond its self, so the fish really dont have a place to spawn, i make sure to feed them canned peas so they do not become egg bound
Canned peas?? Is this a secret of the trade you need to share? :) Is my veggie growth in the pond enough without peas?
Annac213, I learning here, thanks! I have koi in the 10 to 26 inch range. If there are fry I never see them get large enough to identify as koi. The comets breed nearly out of control. You have beautiful fish. Most of my 8 koi are four years old. Somebody should be breeding by now. Maybe they are are all males. :) I don't really know for sure. They thrash around and knock over pots and try to beach themselves in the shallow areas but no fry ever emerge as a result of this activity. How do you stop a spawn?
I've been told koi have to have something to lay their eggs on. That's why some people have koi ponds with no plants in them.
You may notice your fish will start to spawn after the water in their enviroment has experienced a change. For example, adding water or having a rain storm can sometimes trigger a spawn. You'll may notice the foamy appearance of the water after a spawn.
In a spawn a female will usually be chased around by males and they will bang her into things in the pond. Generally speaking, if a fish had hips the females are broader about that area. The males are usually long and thin. However, you can get fat males and skinny females once in awhile.
Ah hah, Now I have to change the names of a couple of the koi. Festus is definitely a Festina. And Charlie has become Charlene. I definitely have more slender bodied fish than plump hippy ones. The pond has been foamy on a couple of occasions and I had no idea why. It is too early for plants here. The water lillies are just begining to put up leaves. The last frost date just passed. The high temp for the next two days is supposed to be in the 50's. I have seen the spawining behavior you describe with the comets. The koi get rowdy from time to time but I am not sure it is spawning. Mostly they overturn pots when they can and destroy any vegetation they can get to except the water lillies. Thanks for the info.
yea "foamy" they probally spawned, foam is a sign of excess protien in the water it will go away. Yea koi do need spawning media thats why i dont put plants in my koi pond, now my bog and turtle ponds are a diffrent story:)
here is a pic of the bog, it is connected to the turtle pond, i have iris a lotus some lilies and various other plants in there
here is the turtle pond, both are obviously not finished
Turtles too. I don't think I could keep up with you! :>) That is too cool. Send pics if the day ever comes when you are finished. I say that because it has been four years for us and every year we say next year we will finish! We had a heavy rain last night ans the comest are spawning again. A couple of the koi are pushing around one of the females too. I have some rushes growing strong in pots in the shallow area and I found them up there this morning very early doing their thing. I learn something in every post. I love this place.
snapple.
If you really want to see some fry (babys) and you don't have plants; try getting a few net scrubbers for in the shower, tie them together. To form a long floting mass. and when they spawn pull the rope of nets out. they should be farily full of eggs.( Little creamy white dots) Put the intire net rope in a seperate tub or smaller container. in about a week or two you will see little eye balls with seemingly no body, swimming around. But if left in the pond the gold fish commets and other fish just have a feast. Best time to check for evidence of a spawn and eggs would be early morning. That is what I have experienced, in our little piece of paridice. We like to bring some of the eggs in the house, for in the aquarium to watch them grow up to about two to three inches.
If it becomes your choice to do the same; make sure to use a foam filter on the pickup tube to keep the very little fry from becoming lost in the filtering tank. Waiting to hear if this works for you.
Russ
About 1 month ago, I moved my water lillies to a separate, large bucket because my goldfish/comets/shubunkins were eating the lillies; I wanted to give them a chance to grow. Little did I know that the lillies contain eggs. Shortly afterwards, we had several (about 15 or so) small fry. We moved the fry to another bucket with aeration. In a couple of weeks, we will move them to our newest pond. My question is, what do eggs look like? My goldfish/comets/shubunkins are spawning every couple of weeks or so. I would like to take out the eggs, but I have no clue what they look like. Does anybody have a picture of the eggs? Thanks. Lori
In my pond the goldfish usually lay their eggs in the roots of water lettuce and water hyacinth. They are pretty small, think of the ball at the end of a ball point pen. They are clear or yellowish and I have notice small black dots on the inside. If you find any white ones they are not fertile. My goldfish like to lay them as high up on the plant as possible. They do not lay them in big clusters like frogs, but will lay them individually but they will all be close together. I found a web page that has some good pictures. http://hometown.aol.com/_ht_a/kmam1/MyPond/InformationonFry.html