Kin Kikokuryu Spawn 7/5/2013

Hello, here is a video of a couple of our fish that had just finished spawning . Koi lay a very large number of eggs to insure survivors in the wild. For every 2.2 lbs. of body weight a female will lay approximately 100,000 eggs. This female is about 2 pounds so we should have 100,000 eggs or so in this pond. Immediately after spawning is complete we pull the adults from the pond. If left with the eggs they will quickly eat nearly all of them. We then add an anti-fungal to keep the eggs from getting fungus and insure a high hatch rate. It is usually 3 days till the eggs hatch depending on water temperature. At first the fry can't swim, they kind of move around in bursts and then sink to the bottom. After a few days they will make their way to the surface and take in a gulp of air. This fills their swim bladder and makes them buoyant so they can swim freely without sinking.  It is at this time they start to feed on small particles in the water. After 30 days or so, depending on how fast they grow, we have to sort through the fish and remove any deformed  and unwanted fish. This culling process takes place up to 4 more times till you have only a small number of the most desired fish. We will reduce the number from 100,000 down to only 250 or so. These are the fish with the best color, pattern and body shape. And those are the fish we will offer for sale.