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| My koi spawned and I already have plenty of fish, thank you (18 in a 2,500 gallon pond). I don't WANT any more fish and would rather get the eggs out rather than have to chase down a bunch of fry who would rather not get caught. Any ideas on the best way to do that?
My gunite pond is lined with granite boulders and some of the eggs are attached to those. The bulk of the eggs are in and around a water lily in a large pot. I could remove the pot and let it dry in the sun but the lily might not survive. How long can koi eggs survive outside of water? Thanks for any suggestions. (My apologies to any "right to life" folks whom I may have offended by this post. Please don't respond with any "Baby-killer!" messages...) |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Koi eggs are pretty fragile. If you take the pots out for just an hour or so, that should do it and it won't hurt the plants. Also try getting push broom and sweeping them loose from the rocks. I bet the koi will eat lots of them, but you are still going to end up with fry. A minnow cage works well to trap them when they are little. |
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| Thanks so much for your advice, ccoombs. I'll give those suggestions a try! |
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| Mointalvo, there is a method of birth control you could use by having a few spawning mops in your pond. You can make a spawning mop by cutting a hank of wool [bought at the dollar store] at one end and tying a loop of wool around the other end to make a wool mop head. If you want to raise the fry, take the mops out of the pond daily after the fish have spawned and place them in a separate tank. Or, Remove the mop daily, dip it in boiling water and put it back into the pond. Or, You could just leave the spawning mops in the pond and the adult fish will still eat the roe, but there will be more fry that will survive. "Horton" |
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| Thanks, Horton. It's been a long time since I sought help on this forum but I see you're still distributing brilliant pearls of wisdom. Great ideas! |
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- Posted by pondmaninal 7b (My Page) on Mon, Jun 7, 10 at 21:25
| If any eggs are on plant parts that you could cut off and wrap in wet newspaper, you could send it to me. :o) |
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| One man's trash is another's treasure... |
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- Posted by nancym1956 (My Page) on Tue, Jun 8, 10 at 9:25
| All good advice. I've found that my koi like to spawn on the coping stones, since I don't have many plants. What plants do get sprayed with eggs are promptly removed and allowed to dry out. As for the coping stones with eggs, I just lower the water level below the stones for a few hours to let them dry out. They did spawn on one of my water lilies a few weeks ago, and I removed it and put it in a tub of chlorinated water, and after a few days, when they probably started hatching, I put the water hose in the bottom and overflowed it. I hate to have to do things like that, but like you, I don't want or need any more baby koi. I'm still overstocked from the spawn of two years ago. I had rocks up the sides of my pond back then, so there were plenty of nooks and crannies for the eggs to incubate. I must say, though, I did get several very nice babies out it, ;-) |
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