Breeding Koi: Controlling The Population Of Your Fish

With most domesticated pets, population control is easy in breeding, as it is just simple to remove any possibility of conception until the time has already come to pass for its opportunity. But it's quite different with Koi. They'll always lay and spawn eggs whether you want them to or not, and others will fertilize them as well.

Now, since methods of contraception is not available for them, you can remove those unwanted babies after they have been born. As harsh as it might seem, remember that if you're going to keep all of the babies, it can bring harm to both your pond and the parent fish!

Now, what would make the offsprings harmful? Primarily, it has something to do with the size that they could grow into. They will grow up to 3 feet, regardless of where they're being placed into. Now, an overpopulation will turn a beautiful pond into an overfilled and wasteful ones!

Having too many fish will damage a smaller pond, and the fish themselves will feel uncomfortable with their environment. In setting up your pond, have a filtration system for a specific number of fish. Adding extra amounts of fish without adding any system to your outdoor pond will really producte harmful gases and chemicals that'll impose danger to them.

How do you dispose of the babies? There are a lot of ways of doing this. First thing to do is to stop feeding your fish the moment you notice any kind of spawning. Don't worry about them starving, because it is in their nature to focus more on natural foods if they don't get fed by their owners daily.

Now, their young is included in this "natural diet". Even though they're not really cannibals, they tend to eat their offspring when they're still eggs or if they're looking like real insects, and they will only stop feeding until they see their young looking like real fish. That's why it's very important to start this process as soon as you observe that spawning has occurred.

Another way of doing this is giving the unwanted offspring away. You can always check your local pet store to see if they have any programs that will accept unwanted animals and give them good shelter. Some of these stores may even pay a certain amount of money for each fish since they will be selling them.

Also, you can search for local zoos that have this program. If you know of any local Koi society, you can tell them that you have unwanted babies that you'd like to give away. You can also find those online message board or group where you can post your messages.

Breeding and keeping your Koi as pets is a fun hobby, but make sure that you take good care of them by monitoring their population in your pond on a regular basis.