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Koi breeding is hard if what you aim for is to produce high-quality fish for competition purposes. Before you can have a prize-winning koi fish, you will have to cull and discard several thousand fry. The koi breeding process is long and difficult but it is worth it all.

Selecting the Parents

Select the male and female from the same variety you want to reproduce. If you wish to cross-breed, choose varieties carefully and research more on the kind of offspring you're most likely to get. Just remember that the dominant genes are those from the male parent.

Be sure to use only matured fish for breeding purposes. The appropriate breeding age of the female is from 5 years onwards as their eggs are larger and more fertile. Beware of breeding females under the age of 4 years old as your koi could lose their colors and patterns if bred at a young age. The female koi is ready to spawn if you observe it sucking at the edges of the pond, trying to clear a place where she can deposit her eggs.

Male koi can start spawning upon reaching the age of two when small white nodules show up on the pectoral fins and gill plates. You can actually feel those areas to be rougher than normal. You can utilize the younger males every two weeks but give a longer time interval for older males to maximize their fertility potential.

Spawning

Koi will naturally spawn in the early summer months. If you let that to happen, however, the eggs will only be eaten by the other fish while the females get more anxious. The net result will be offspring of bad quality. Besides, a pond filled with eggs will harbor bad bacteria that will negatively affect the health of your koi population.

If you are serious in koi breeding, you will have to use a controlled method. Place the koi brooders in a different pond and make sure to hang spawning media from the walls of the pond. The female will need them to place her eggs which can be anywhere between 100,000 to 500,000 depending on her weight. You can use ropes, artificial grasses, natural plants, vegetable sacking, as well as cloth strips as spawning material.

During courtship, the male pursues the female and forces her against the walls of the pond to induce spawning. If there are two or three males in the pond, they will group on her to simultaneously fertilize the eggs.

You will know that the Koi have spawned when there is foam on the water surface and the unique smell of ammonia. By that time, you will need to move the female to another pond where she can regain her strength. Take away the males too; otherwise, they may feed on the eggs.

Culling

The fry will break out of their eggshells within 5 to 7 days. They will continue growing and you can start culling on the sixth week. Remove the baby koi with deformities like missing fins, deformed mouths, colorless, and single color.

Culling is crucial in koi breeding. You need to reduce the numbers so the good quality fry can reach a decent size by the end of the season. If you do not cull, the unwanted koi will still compete with the good koi for food and space. Culled fry are usually destroyed or fed to the other fish.

You can release your chosen young koi in a mud pond that is very rich in natural food. As they grow bigger, you can continue the selection procedure until you get only the ideal koi that you would like to keep or sell.

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Associated Resources

• Aquariums Uk
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