PREPARING YOUR BREEDING STOCK
If you have room, it is preferable to separate your breeding females from the main pond
to a second pond with the same main pond water running through it. Even if you only have one brood female add one
or two more females for company as she will loose condition being alone. Never lift a brood female out of the water using
a net. Slip her into a plastic bag to move her, this way she remains buoyant in water. If you have enough room you can also
keep the breeding males in another pond. The reason for isolating the females is one morning after rain you may find that
the horny males will pack rape her and any other females that are full of eggs. To bring a female into condition for breeding
I use soft pellets, brown bread and vegemite and tiger worms, but no carbohydrates like pasta, rice etc. For males - tiger
worms, brown bread and vegemite, pasta, rice and cereals like Nutri-Grain.
PREPARING THE RAISING POND
This can be done in two ways:- - Growing green water and Daphnia in the same pond, and/or - producing
Daphnia and green water in separate ponds. All this needs to be done 2 to 3 weeks before you start breeding depending on location
of the pond as it needs full sun. After the fry have hatched and consumed their egg sack, they will naturally start looking
for food. This will be something small like micro-organisms which are found in green water (Infusoria), which is the bottom
of the food chain. As the fry grow they look for more substantial food. This includes Daphnia (water fleas) of various sizes.
Daphnia also feed on the Infusoria. I use two containers for this, one - the hatching pond is cleaned and dried for a few
days and then refilled with clean tap water to a depth of 30 cm (do not use the filter). (The fry cannot survive the pressure
created by water over this depth). Let it age and add 1 teaspoon per 450 lts of complete garden fertilzer and let the water
go green. At the same time I fill some 300lt containers with pond water and add some chook poo and dry, boiled hay. This will
start my water fleas growing which are a good source of live, natural food for fry. Check and adjust your pH to as close to
neutral as possible. And cover the pond from nasties!
RAISING DAPHNIA (WATER FLEAS)
You cannot have too many Daphnia as the fry will feed on them for months.
It is best
to cultivate Daphnia in a tank or pond with a large surface area in full sun and covered with fly mesh or shade cloth. Make
sure they have an air supply, they are heavy users of oxygen.
If you see the daphnia turn red then this is a sign that
there is not enough oxygen in the water. Either add an extra air stone or thin them down BUT do not take more than 1/2 the
stock.
If you have some or you get a bag of daphnia from a koi mate, they can survive over winter. So do not empty out
the tank completely as the eggs will be on the bottom.
To start a culture, throughly clean your container, add treated
or fresh water and let age as chlorine will kill them - as will other koi medications! Add 1 level teaspoon of complete garden
fertiliser per 450 lts and let the water go green. To aid this you can boil some hay or hand cut grass, dried and boiled when
cold add the water you boiled and the hay (best put in a stocking or alike) to the tank.
Another way is to put a handfull
of chook poo per 300 lts in a stocking as well as the boiled hay and left alone, the water will go green. With a little luck,
daphnia will start growing or you can add some of your own.
As the infusoria starts the daphnia will eat them and multiply.
You can cull them down for the fry and keep the culture going for weeks with added green water, fry powder and/or brewers
yeast. If you have too many fleas at one time bag them and put in the freezer for later.
Adjust your water pH to between
7.8 and 8.4.
