I still only have my original 4 adult koi and no spawning. Only changes are the addition or the bog and some floating planters this year. It has been a very hot summer. I know 3 of the 4 are close to 20 years old.....do they stop spawning due to age?
Hi Tula. Definitely older fish stop spawning at some point. I read somewhere they stop around 15 years but have no idea if that’s accurate. Which are the oldest of your fish males or females? Obviously if you have just one fish of a certain sex that could stop all the spawning if they can’t reproduce. I read something else interesting that they can start spawning as young as one year old if they accumulate enough heat days. I have not seen any of my Koi spawn yet but most are under two years old as far as I know (Tosai).
Hi so do you mean they don’t spawn at all or just the eggs and fry don’t survive? I know with my goldfish they still spawn like crazy but having 50 goldish and 10 Koi in the pond now instead of 10-15 goldfish like the old days the eggs and fry pretty much all get eaten. I remember a series of years I got 10-15 new babies every year. This year I must have had 100s of tiny goldfish fry in my bog , but some of the bigger fish figured out how to get in it and they had a nice little meal!
I don't know about koi, but I have two male goldfish that are 15 and 16 years old and they were busy chasing the females this year!
Hi Tula so when I planned my bog I actually hired a professional pond builder to help me out because I was a little lost how to do it. I had decided to build the bog in the pond and he gave me some ideas how to do it. I brought the water down a little so it was easier to stand in and built a wall dividing off one corner of the pond which had about 21 sf of surface area that was the same depth of my pond 42 inches deep. I did not mortar the wall together as some people recommend because I was building it in “ wet” conditions. He actually advised to take out all the water and fish but I didn’t do that. His suggestion was to let the water flow back and forth so as to mix between the bog and pond as much as possible and that I did not need an actually waterfall. ie create a wetland. For this reason I did not plug up all the gaps in the dividing wall between the pond and bog when I built the it. I just made sure my new liner in the bog held the stone and gravel in and everything was solid. Close to the top there are some spots where the liner doesn’t come all the way to the top where water and fish can travel between the bog and pond. They are narrow holes and tough to navigate but some of my smaller fish figured out how to go back and forth… especially some of the females that were being chased during spawning! So early in the season I had about 1/2 dozen small goldfish living mostly in the bog but when the got bigger they switched to the actual pond.
*insert frowny face* ah, I don't think you're EVER supposed to refer to a female as 'looks eggy', are you? Or is that just something a man isn't supposed to consider?
Thanks Cas. That’s a good idea. Usually I have one running but disconnected it when I did my waterfall. So I put it in by my lilies because the water is so still there. I’m including a picture. You can see the little bubbles towards the back of the pond between a few lilies. I’m not sure if that’s enough.
Wow that’s a lot of bubbles! I think if I did something like that I wouldn’t be able to see my fish because my lilies are covering 50% of the pond already and the bubbles would hide the rest. I put in my Koi mini air pump this evening. I’m thinking of putting in another water pump because I have a few extra.