Koi Fry Progress!!! -- Born June, 2011

[xoniac]

So our koi and shubunkins were spawning again this year! Normally, we don't get to rescue more than 10 from the gaping mouths of their parents... but this year, we caught them in the act and took 4 egg-covered plants from them, put them in a bucket of pond water. Wasn't sure if they were left in the pond long enough to be fertilized... until I looked under the plants yesterday. This is what I found.

[ZX10R]

Hard to imagine something that tiny grows up to be a fish

[Disgirl]

Hey, that is great! Hope you get some Koi grown ups from this group. If any of my 10 Koi ever spawn and produce fertilized eggs I have never seen it. Let us know how yours do. Funny how baby fish look alike. These could be guppies or cichlid fry.
Barb

[xoniac]

I know! Especially when given the size of the parents. Geeze.

We usually only end up saving 10 or so, and from that, we have never managed to keep more than 3 alive for long enough to join their parents outside. Due to the fact that they mass spawn, many of the babies end up deformed. Of the ones that do make it, half of them turn out being really ugly and resembling carp. Normally, we only end up saving shubunkin babies as well. We'll see how this goes. Thanks!

[Melissa]

Thanks for sharing the pictures! Very interesting they look the same as other fish fry haha

[nc0gnet0]

Where in Michigan? Suprised with the weather we have had they spawned this early. Any Pictures of the parents?

Rick

[xoniac]

I live in the metro Detroit area - it's been super hot but we add cold water whenever it gets too hot outside, and they are under a huge canopy. Once you throw some plants in there, it's all over. Every year. Haha. Also, thunderstorms seem to get them 'in the mood'. We've had a lot of them lately.

I'm working on pictures of all of them (or, the ones you can see. We have a lot of black and really dark fish that are hard to make out on a black bottom). I only know for sure which one of the females was spawning that day... all the males in the pond chased after just that one. She was worn out come late afternoon. I'll post them as soon as I sort through them so I can show you all.

[xoniac]

Here's pictures:


Mama is MOST LIKELY the dark orangeish butterfly koi at the bottom, named Silver (she was silver and white when she was little; she turned orange as she got older. Mom's not very creative with names.). The speckled shubunkin (named Kaleidoscope) swimming above and just to her left has been the mother of likely all of our previous survivals; she's also our oldest fish - about 8+ years old now. (This is one of her babies from last year (I forget her name. Speckles, I think. Go figure): )

The most likely candidates for fathers are below:

Thrash. We honestly introduced him into the pond the day before the spawning, but then when it came down to it, he was chasing her around with all the other boys. He's my personal favorite and is a gorgeous fish.

Creamcicle. Named after the ice cream. Obviously, he's the big orange and white butterfly there. He's our largest fish, about a foot and a half long, and always first in line behind the females during spawning. He gets to be kind of a pest, actually, and sometimes refuses to let up on our poor girls.

Here's pictures of the rest that turned out; really, any of these can be the parents as well - the ones above are just the most likely candidates. Although all of our fish have names (sad, I know), I'll spare you all and just put pictures:



In case you're wondering, yes, there are four baby bluegill in there with them. Somebody gave them to my mom for free, and she loves bluegills, so she tossed them in there. -.- So far, they haven't caused any trouble but we're considering getting them out of there soon anyways, as they get pretty mean and we don't want them hurting anyone. Also, sitting down and looking at these pictures, I'm pretty sure we have a lot more males than females.... should work on that.

[xoniac]

Well, my room is beginning to look like a fish room now. No joke. I have my main tank set up and split in two because my rams decided they wanted to have some babies too after seeing my new baby discus and they tend to get a bit overzealous. Then, I have my 5g crab tank set up, and THEN we decided to set up a filter in the Koi Fry bucket, which required us moving it indoors. As I have the extra room in here, it's become part of my setup as well, now. My poor bird must be really confused now, why all this water is in her room...