koi breeding tips that will make you breed koi fish successfully

koi breeding This is my personal experience on  how to breed koi fish.

I had also included the actual koi breeding step by step videos that I had done in koi breeding.

The videos start with identifying the koi fish genders down to hatching and caring and raising koi fry.

The most important part is to identify koi fish breeder gender check out the video below

How can you tell if a koi fish is male or female?

A mature male koi will have a slender looking body, while a female koi will have a rounded body,

particularly when it’s spawning season and she’s carrying a nest full of eggs! Next, examine your koi’s fins.

A male koi’s pectoral fins, the ones near his head, will appear pointed and solid in color

Also, check the male breeders if they are ready to be breed by checking if they have enough milt and sperm watch video below on how to do it.

koi breeding setup 

My koi breeding setup is simple DIY breeding koi pond tank and the materials I used are bamboo for the koi pond frame and Trapal for the liner.

how old do koi have to be to breed

Koi fish are sexually matured when they are about 1-year old already but it is not advisable to breed them at young age

Why? because the membrane of the female egg is thin yet and the outcome is high mortality rate of the koi fry,

It is hard to determine koi fish age if you just bought it from somebody else or at the pet store, since sizes will not determine koi fish age,

because koi fish that are placed in smaller koi pond grows slow, so tendency some will breed even if their sizes are small because of their age are sexually matured already.

How long is a koi fish pregnant?

Koi do not get pregnant and are not live-bearers. Koi fish typically mate in warmer water in the spring or summer seasons.

There is no timeframe how long will the female koi fish developed eggs. What you can do is isolate the female koi fish breeder.

This will make the female koi fish breeder to store and develop eggs.

You can tell if the female koi fish breeder has enough eggs already by looking at its abdomen.

The female koi fish breeder abdomen will be swollen

The mating period lasts about two to three days in which the female lays the eggs upon various surfaces while the male shortly after fertilizes them.

how often do koi fish lay eggs

Normally koi will breed once a season on Countries that have four seasons usually spring time.

Why, because during springtime the temperature is warm and foods are abundant.

but not always, sometimes it will take warmer water and sometimes colder water.

Sometimes a sudden change in water temperature and water chemistry stimulate them to spawn.

Once instance to prove this is I transfer my large female koi to the breeding tank with cooler water

and when I check her in the morning it had spawn that night already.

It did make for a mess in her show tank. Some will spawn twice in a year, some won’t and even skip a year.

Some breeders will induce spawning so that they can develop fry on a schedule.

I always do this though I am not using an artificial breeding method controlling environment works for me.

I isolate the female from males and condition both the female and male koi fish breeder

I can breed my koi fish the whole year round since We don’t have four season here in my place.

Some koi will spawn later in the year but for the most part the farms time to a part of the season to keep their whole operation running on a schedule.

What age to breed koi?

A Koi’s prime mating age is between 3-6 years old, but koi have also been able to produce baby koi fish until they are up to 15 years old.

Make sure to give your breeding koi couple some privacy when it’s time for them to mate. Koi need a place to lay their eggs.

How long does it take for koi fish eggs to hatch?

Your koi eggs will hatch around 4 days after they are fertilized for colder Countries. 2 days for Tropical warmer Countries.

They will then attach themselves to structure like the side of the tank or pond for 2-3 days where they will be feeding off their yolk sac.

Is my koi fish pregnant?

However, your koi will appear bloated and pregnant for up to several days before she’s ready to release her eggs.

At this point, you could still stop the spawning from happening if you don’t want eggs or baby fish (fry)

in your pond by simply removing the females from the pond, keeping them separate from the males.

koi breeding Separate the female koi fish breeder for conditioning 

Separate the female koi fish breeder from male koi fish breeders. Why? It will help ensure the female koi fish breeder to develop more eggs.

If female koi fish breeder is mixed with male koi fish breeders in the community pond.

The males will mate her without your knowledge, so the female koi fish cannot store enough eggs on its tummy.

Watch the video here 

Feed your female koi breeder and male koi fish breeder high protein koi food pellets.

Feed your koi fish breeders plenty of live foods and vegetation

Watch video here

Live foods for koi fish 

• Daphnia
• Earth worms
• Snails
• Tubifex
• Shrimp

List of vegetation that koi fish loves

• duckweed
• green pea
• wheat germ
• lettuce
• water melon
• azola

Observe the female koi fish breeder body specifically her tummy region if it became swollen already.

This is your indicator if the female koi fish is ready to spawn

You can also apply a gentle pressure in its ventral area if the tummy is swollen already if there are eggs already.

The eggs will come out if it is ready to spawn.

One indicator also is the tummy region is soft when touch.

And you can also watch the video here

Preparing the koi pond for breeding 

• I change the water 60 % and leave the water dripping slowly this will stimulate them to breed too.
• Add nesting media I created a floating yarn and net

how do koi fish mate

The male koi fish will chase the female koi fish and bump its abdomen to the pond wall or nesting media.

Adding the koi fish breeders 

I add the koi fish together at 6 pm in the evening and note this was also done at the full moon.

I check them at 12:00 midnight if they already breed but there was no koi breeding sign yet,

a breeding sign is female will gather the nesting media and seems like creating bubbles and males will chase her,

so I just leave them and then when I wake up at around 5:00 am in the morning they are already chasing and breeding here is the actual video of them breeding watch koi fish actual video breeding 

Remove the koi fish breeders after they are done mating.

You will notice if they are already done mating when the males no longer chase the female koi fish breeder.

You need to remove them fast immediately because after laying eggs they will start eating their eggs.

Then perform 60% water change this will prevent water to be foul because of the sperms.

in koi breeding you must always prepare methylene blue for protecting the eggs.

Place methylene blue to prevent the molds attacking the eggs.

how fast do koi fry grow this will depend on the temperature of the water the climate the faster they grow because warmer temperature stimulate their metabolism and this will trigger them to eat fast.

What do koi fish eggs look like?

Koi like to lay their eggs on pond plants, spawning mats, or spawning ropes. … Koi eggs are tiny and translucent.

They can range from milky white to yellow or green. After the next two days, the koi fish eggs will hatch

Here is a video of a koi fry growth chart watch it here

koi fry growth rate in the first week from hatching their sizes are about 1 cm and their koi fry color are all yellow yet.

you can watch this video of my 1-week old koi fry

how fast do baby koi grow to depend on the temperature, size of the pond and sources of live foods.

If you feed them daily with live foods they grow too fast also if your temperature is warmer they tend to feed more in warmer temperature because warm climate makes their metabolism fast, so they get hungry all the time.

koi eggs hatching depends on the temperature here in my place which is tropical and warm koi eggs hatch in 2 days in colder region koi eggs hatch for 7 to 10 days.

3-week old koi fry
what do baby koi fish look like It really depends on the stage for the first-week yellow, second week two colors appear black and yellow, third week 3 colors? If you want to see baby koi fish fry see my video below

1-Week Old Koi Fry Video

2-Week Old Koi Fry in our koi breeding 

3-Week Old Koi Fry

4-Week Old Koi Fry Video

5-week old koi fry video

6-week old koi fry video

Here is the vidoe of my 7-week old koi fry now

Update of our koi fry today, they are now 8-week old koi fry, here’s a video below

Update today the koi fry are now 9-week old koi fry their number decreases because

I was not able to remove the tobi koi fry and last week also the water quality was degraded because some of the clams died and also their pooh increase already since they are growing to watch the video below

Here is an article about Tobi koi fry from http://www.raingarden.us

THE NATURE OF TOBI
Steve Hopkins
Rain Garden Ornamentals
June 2007
Anyone who breeds koi knows about tobi. In other species these are often called “shooters”.

They occur in goldfish spawns too. They are the fry that grow to juvenile size very quickly.

They are noted for eating their smaller siblings.

Most tobi koi do not have the refined characteristics the breeder is looking for, although some do.

I have never seen a good explanation of how and why tobi develop.

If anyone knows of an authoritative description, please let us know. Until then, I will give you my off-the-wall
theory about tobi.

I think tobi are hard to explain because there are two factors at work, genetics and blind luck.

Genetics: Koi and goldfish carry in their genetic code remnants of everything that come before.

A top-notch pair of gosanke or ranchu carries all the genetic material needed to make the ancestral common carp or crucian carp from which they were derived through selective breeding.

They also have all the genetic material needed to recreate the incremental steps in their evolution.

In the offspring from a pair of sanke you will find kohaku, higoi and perhaps even a magoi.

A group of ryukin offspring may include individuals with characteristics of wakin and common goldfish.

The more ancestral forms are always more hardy.

Left to their own devices and allowed to breed indiscriminately for many generations, a population of koi will revert
back to something resembling the ancestral common carp and goldfish will revert back to something resembling a crucian carp.

In a group of sibling fry, those with a more primitative genetic make-up will be just a little bit stronger and faster giving them a slight advantage when it comes time to eat or avoid a predator.

But, in the world of fish fry, a slight advantage can become amplified many fold.

There is a snowball effect. A fry that gets just a little bit bigger than its siblings is better able to
capture and compete for food so it grows faster.

The larger the size disparity, the bigger the advantage. So, over just a few weeks time an individual that is just slightly
larger than its siblings becomes ten times larger than its siblings.

At some point, the size disparity becomes so great that the larger individual can eat its siblings providing it
with a new limitless food supply.

The snow ball effect escalates. Blind Luck But, how can some tobi be excellent examples of highly refined koi or goldfish and show no signs of being a throw-back to an ancestral form?

I think it is because there is a blind luck factor at work as well.

Imagine a group of larvae which have absorbed their yolk sack and are ready to begin feeding.

Perhaps some arrive at this stage a few hours ahead of the rest because they were spawned first or their position on the spawning substrate was a fraction of a degree warmer then the rest, or because of some other factor.

The larvae instinctively dart at a moving food particle.

Some times they catch it and sometimes they miss.

They are growing extremely rapidly and catching one or two extra choice food morsels can make a difference in that growth rate.

Some individuals are just lucky and are able to get a tiny bit ahead of their siblings.

As described above, a very small advantage can quickly snowball into a large advantage.

An individual with no innate genetic advantage can become a tobi just through bind luck.

Another Observation In some batches of fry the size distribution is large and there is an unusually large number of tobi.

In other batches the size distribution is narrow and the siblings look almost identical.

In general, the better the fry are fed the less variation there will be in their size.

If abundant live food can be kept in front of the fry at all times while maintaining good water quality, there is a much lower incidence of tobi.

Under the best of conditions the growth of fry is phenomenal and most of the population (except for those with serious deformities) has the potential to grow at the rate of tobi.

The best way to minimize the number of tobi is to provide better nutrition and husbandry.

The biggest and best koi and goldfish will have had the best nutrition and water quality their entire lives.

Periods of less than optimal conditions can have long-term effects.

In extreme cases, we say that the fish is stunted.

The younger the fish, the more severe and lasting the effect of poor nutrition and water quality.

Tobi are considered by most to be undesirables.

If they are genetic throw-backs then they probably are undesirable. However, you should be on the look-out for those fish

which have both the genetic potential to meet your selection criteria and the good luck to have gotten off to a fast start in life and become a tobi.

It is always a good idea to separate tobi if you can; especially if they have become large enough to be cannibals.

But, do not automatically assume they have no potential.

Update of my koi fry check out this video

how to breed koi

How do you breed koi carp in a tank?

Make sure you place a net over the breeding tank because once the koi begin breeding, the process will become aggressive and violent, and you don’t want your koi fish to end up on the floor. Once a female begins nosing around breeding areas, she is ready to begin breeding. Add a male to the tank.

How long is a koi fish pregnant?

Koi do not get pregnant and are not live-bearers. Koi fish typically mate in warmer water in the spring or summer seasons. The mating period lasts about two to three days in which the female lays the eggs upon various surfaces while the male shortly after fertilizes them.

To be continue…