Baffled

[cuesport]

I was going to post this in the spaening forum but it doesn,t look like many people go there lately. I have just found 5 baby fish in my pond. A brief background: The pond is only 1 month old. Up until last week, my largest fish (all Koi) was 6"-7". 6 days ago, I bought a 12" Koi (from Petco).
The babies I've seen so far are 3/4 - 1" long. I never saw any evidence of a spawn. I didn't figure on any spawning for at least a couple of years, if then. We were thinking that when I bought the big guy (or gal) that there were fry in the water the store put in the bag. I think that's unlikely because I watched that tank for a long time (deciding which Koi I wanted) and never saw any tiny fish.
My pond is about 1000 gals. and is about 2/3 covered with plants. I don't know how many more there are. Any explainations? How long does it take to go from spawn to 1" long?
Any plants that I have purchased were in tanks with no fish.

 

[stroppy]

could it be goldfish from your other pond ...did you move any of the plants from there to the new pond ?

 

[cuesport]

I don't believe so and the goldfish are very young. The longest one is only about 2". I know all of the fish I have (not that many). It's not like I could have inadvertantly moved one. At first, we would only see them in one particular spot. Today, they're venturing all over the place.
I'm thinking "Immaculate Conception" LOL. I really wish I could come up with a logical answer.

 

[stroppy]

must be the koi then ...but im no expert ...maybe if you could take pics someone would know what they are

 

[DrCase]

it would take about 6 weeks to get that big..
your koi most likly did it when you weren't watching
Its ok to post here but if you did it in spawning it would look like there was more activity there

 

[Olee]

Lets add one more to that activity.....
My pond is only 3mos old and I have babies swimming all over as well. I guess that one of the fish I bought when the pond was new was ready. My fish are only about 9" at the most now. My babies are definetly Koi (have orange and black like my "Cammo"). Yeah, I know your'e not supposed to name your fish.......

 

[cuesport]

Good point Dr. Case. Do you think that 6" Koi are capable of spawning? Everything I've read tells me they're too young. 6 weeks eliminates my 12" Koi from the picture and puts my other Koi at even smaller size. I do recall 2 of my Koi exhibiting behavior that appeared to be mating. I remember researching it on this forum. It could be within that time frame. I don't know of any other explanation.

 

[OntarioTodd]

I'm having the same issues however I just have plane old goldfish (a couple of old guys are over 7" long). We have a lot of baby fish. I'm not sure what to do with them all! Cute little gappers though...

Todd

 

[DrCase]

If you got fry ..
I think they are big enough..:biggrin:

 

[DrDave]

If you have 6" fish laying eggs, they are most likely not Koi. At 12" koi might be mature enough, but just barely.

 

[ZmanArt007]

They might not be koi. I talked to a guy at Earl Mays, he tried to sell me some butterfly koi. I looked at the fish, and saw that they were longtail comets. Some of these people are very uneducated.

 

[cuesport]

All were purchased as Koi, (most from reputable dealer) all have the barbells and all have recognizable colors and markings.

 

[jenn.]

ya know, this spring we completely drained, cleaned and removed everything from our pond (got that bad). 4 weeks later we had 5 baby koi. They are now 2-4" and 100% surely koi. My largest koi is ~12" but the other is only 6-7". We had 3 other 6-7" before but they disappeared before we cleaned (damn egret). I thought they were all to small to spawn and that they wouldn't do it in a "new" pond, but obviously I was wrong. We still have 4 of them and they are starting to run with the big fish now!

 

[DrDave]

I bet the largest Koi is the female. I remember (just barely) when I was young and not so tall. LOL

 

[jenn.]

I Always though she was since she was so "thick". She is only 3 years old. One of the babies looked just like her (even though I know they change), but it died. She is light blue on the sides with a purple/blue stripe down the back. I know the blue koi aren't anything special but they are my favorite :banghead3: