Fry progress report

[jameskoi]

BTW, I have a 60G tank I jump started again. It's still full of natural microbes. I had a dozen minnows that died in there last summer and I didn't scoop out. Cleaned up the tank and it's online now.

~200 fry in there. My back up fry tank. Spent first few days eating whatever was in there.

This was an unexpected spawning. Had I planned to not shut down pond, I would let koi eat all the eggs. I don't have any resources to raise 1000+ fry but I do now.

 

[jameskoi]

If anyone is interested, see video of 1500G pond.

[ame]

 

[koiguy1969]

already saw them all james777.

 

[talal101]

If anyone is interested, see video of 1500G pond.

wow so many beauties in that group i would die to get my hands on some of those lol, and how did you get away with a 14 inch koi in a 130g tank for so long?

 

[jameskoi]

I sold all my little koi and 2 months ago and needed something in there for a replacement. I had to put my smallest one in there and it was 14'. I did fine...

The 14' wasn't sold yet so I decided to put it back into the main pond and move two sold 14 & 15" koi into the 130G.

A day later, the eggs came.

BTW, thanks for the comments. Some are pretty nice. Some colour got lost due to indoor pond but I'm confident it'll come back when they go to new homes. All buyers have outdoor ponds, including one with 10,000G.

 

[talal101]

Np James, your fish are gorgeous they really are you should be proud of them and also how long was that 14" fish in the 130g pond/tank?

 

[jameskoi]

Thanks, I am. I hope they'll live long lives b/c I know they'll do fine with me. 4-10" koi turned into 14-22". The 22" is a domestic (it should be obvious in the video) was about 4" long 2 years ago.

The 14" koi stayed in 130G for two months.

 

[sissy]

poor things look bored .My fish have a lighted ball and a green and blue ball and the love to push them around .Yesterday I was mowing the lawn and I was right by the edge of the pond and they flipped the blue one right out of the pond .A couple of times before that I kept finding one of there plastic balls on the ground and wondered about it ,now I know for sure how they get flipped out:lol::lol:

 

[jameskoi]

Wow, they actually play with balls? haha... Cool.

Pictures coming soon and here's current update.

Last night, ammonia off the charts. Using API test kit (the one that turns green). Used 1 ml of tank water with 4 ml of clean water to get a reading. Maybe it's around 15ppm. Perhaps ammo-lock saved the day. Nitrites over 5ppm (zero the day before). pH from normal 7.8 dropped down to ~6.2. Even dumped some baking soda mixed in water first in the morning.

Swapped pond media scrubbies with main pond. Not sure if it'll work but confident it will... Just in case, I did 80% water change slowly. After that, water tested about 3-4ppm ammonia and nitrites about 1ppm.

This morning, everything is testing ZERO again. Thank goodness I have extra resources. No need to do daily water changes for now. Probably saved a lot of fry too.

Day 5: I know I lost some fry in the last few days, but overall visual observation remains unchanged since massive 50% die off. Still good 2000+ fry. Who knows, maybe lots more.

 

[jameskoi]

In case someone freaks out about ammonia (and calculated 15ppm times 5). Some clarification here. 1 ml of tank water + 4ml of good water = ~4ppm. Times this by 5 and it's 20ppm. So maybe total amount of ammonia in tank can be 15-20ppm. I guess that should be death for fry if it wasn't for ammo lock. API test kit can only measure up to 8ppm.

I've seen crazier spikes when my 1500G pond was cycling. I got too excited and added too much koi (the ones you see in video when they were small) and paid the price. So much hard work (ulcers), so much $$$ spent on ammo-lock and meds (even on sale) and water changes. Over counter meds were useless. Baytril injections only way. Perhaps PP paste. Too bad only tried on one koi out of desperation. It worked so well. It was suppose to die. Was 4"-5", now 17"+. Gas bill was at an all time high during that time compared to the coldest winters. It's spring and that was time when furnace barely in use. Surprised gas company didn't investigate for gas leaks.

 

[talal101]

wow sissy sounds very cool and i see 2 months, thats good that you managed to keep them as they aged i think that is the best part of pet ownership, to grow up with your pets as you both age.

 

[sissy]

Yeh there great fish just wish I could afford a new bigger pond for them but not right now and just hope nothing happens to any of my pumps .I will have to extend the warranty .I had 4 years and that will be running out soon and the saying goes warranty goes and the item does too .I still have to finish the other waterfall but no time grass to mow and trim and just did my taxes today .I was out there feeding my fish and poor Agie wanted me to play with her so had to drop every thing to give her some play time and then she chased the chihuahua around the pond .He barks she follows him laugh a minute .Makes a bad day good

 

[jameskoi]

sissy: that's amazing to hear. None of my koi do anything. Lack of attention I guess. Iol...

Anyway, here are the pics I promised. Pretty much self explanatory.

Well, I guess someone may comment on my hatchery. Totally makeshift - I know. Just gathered whatever I had laying around and boom. Hatchery system the works. I didn't bother on reading how much water to use. I'm just hatching 7-10g per bucket. I have 4 buckets of Instant Ocean salt.

Fry in these pics are Day 5 and doing great. When I look hard enough, I see a fry or two with what looks like to me with damaged tail fin. As if fry are already trying bite each other already. Don't know yet. I haven't witnessed it yet. Doesn't appear to be disease. Everyone else looks great, even fry with damaged tail. Didn't notice any dead fry floating around like yesterday which was very very marginally anyway.

 

[j.w]

Hey, hooray I can see them now and they don't look like little boogers floating around anymore. They look like real fish :bye2:

 

[jameskoi]

If anyone knows what kind of koi I may end up getting from this pair, please share your thoughts and how to cull this cross breed properly. I don't even know the proper name for Mr. Pine Cone. Input would be nice.

BTW, these two koi are already sold. I'm just holding them until weather warms up and look what happened. haha