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Artifical Spawn

koifishgirl
Koi Kichi

Feb 5, 2005, 12:22 AM

Post #1 of 16 (3397 views)
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Artifical Spawn	Can't Post

Hi has anyone ever tried to do a artifical spawn? Have been looking for someone that can help in this area and looking for info on net and have yet to come across anything. Surely someone has done this before and can tell me how to do this. Does anyone know of a book that is out their with this information Crazy

Where are the vets on the forum? OH yes the dont want to pass that info on as they would not make money if that gets out Sly

Judy

BranMuffin
Koi Kichi

Feb 5, 2005, 3:06 AM

Post #2 of 16 (3383 views)
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Re: [koifishgirl] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Once again, get a hold of Gabriele. He's the spawn King when it comes to Artificially Inseminating Koi! (LOL). He's done it, took a couple of male and a female, squeezed the eggs out of the female ... etc..etc..etc and more etc.

I never tried it. Didn't want to take the chance of killing off (or injuring) an expensive fish. I didn't try it with cheaper fish because I didn't want to wind up with thousands of JUNK fish I had to cull.

Best Regards
Bran

A Koi Pond is never FINISHED, it's always subject to improvement.
Drives the Spouse Crazy!

estanque_koi
Koi Lover

Feb 5, 2005, 8:39 AM

Post #3 of 16 (3369 views)
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Re: [koifishgirl] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Yes, I tried last year. It was my first attempt.
I managed to extract milt from males and eggs from a female, fertilize the eggs, remove the sticky layer and place them in my DIY Zug type incubators. A sudden drop of temperature from 18 degrees centigrades to 13 ruined all the work. Luckily I had my best set of parents still waiting and took them two weeks later to natural spawning.

Before I tried artificial spawning induction I spent a lot of time searching information and digesting it.
I must say it is not for the faint-hearted.
You have to get skilled managing the fish, using anaesthesia, injecting
the homone dose, extracting the milt, the eggs ... and so on.
Extracting the milt from males (under anaesthesia) is not difficult.
Females are another history. They must be ripe and almost ready to spawning before injecting them with the hormone. I'm talking about Ovaprim, a synthetic analog produced by Syndel.
It is not easy to predict the right time for the female, and injecting a female that is not ripe leads to failure. Furthermore, the latency time do change with water temperature, and may differ from a female to another. You must be careful, the female might start releasing all their eggs while being alone if you are not frequently checking her condition.
Then you must know all the details of the procedure, the sperm lives and swim just around 30 seconds in fresh water, an the egg micropile will also get closed soon after being in contact with water. So you must learn how to prepare a milt "extender" solution,
and how to fertilize "dry" eggs (whihout water) to maximize fertilization rate.
After fertilizing the eggs you add water, and then the eggs become highly sticky. Well, you have to prepare and use another solution to clean the eggs and get rid of the sticky layer. What else? Ah, yes, have you hear about the type Zug incubators? You must be ready to either buy one or DIY instead (so did I).
etc.
Anyway, if you are interested, you might well start reading this:
http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/X5085E/X5085E00.htm

On the other hand, it will be easier, cheaper and maybe safer for you to take a good couple of Oyagoi and get them spawning.

My interest in artificial spawning is related to my career. I'm biologist and work at the University of Cordoba (Spain) as prof. of ecology. My scientific research is not related with koi or even fish, however.
Regards,
Diego Jordano
Spain
pers http://es.geocities.com/estanqueskois/
A.E.K. http://www.elkoi.com

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inyeccion.jpg (34.1 KB)

koifishgirl
Koi Kichi

Feb 5, 2005, 1:29 PM

Post #4 of 16 (3353 views)
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Re: [estanque_koi] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi Thanks for the info, Bran I talked to Gaberiel last week and I quess I will call him again. I dont have any junk koi to try on so I will have to use my good koi , if Gab knows how to do this he will walk me through the process. And thanks alot for both replys as I did not think anyone on this forum had the experience to help me.
Where do you get the hormones to inject the female , got any idea?
Judy

estanque_koi
Koi Lover

Feb 5, 2005, 11:54 PM

Post #5 of 16 (3339 views)
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Re: [koifishgirl] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

You can online order Ovaprim from Syndel.
http://www.syndel.com/home.html
It worked fin for me, arrived soon and safely.
The same product has to be injected to
both males (smaller dose) and females.
To anesthesize Koi I used eugenol (oil of cloves)
It is cheap, easy to find and very safe.
As I told you, you can find a lot of technical
literature on the subject of artificial spawning
induction in carps.
Hope you have luck with Gabriel, I tried to get
in touch with him and was impossible.
all the best, and keep us posted
Diego
Diego Jordano
Spain
pers http://es.geocities.com/estanqueskois/
A.E.K. http://www.elkoi.com

koifishgirl
Koi Kichi

Feb 6, 2005, 6:55 AM

Post #6 of 16 (3323 views)
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Re: [estanque_koi] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi thank you for the photo of you injecting the koi that helps out alot. Is that the female and how deep do you inject and do you inject the male in the same place? Also I marked the web site under favorites so I can get back to it easy. Have you lost any koi doing this?
Judy

estanque_koi
Koi Lover

Feb 7, 2005, 7:43 AM

Post #7 of 16 (3284 views)
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Re: [koifishgirl] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hello Koifishgirl,
the Koi being injected in the picture is a male Ogon. Females must receive a dose of 0.5 ml/Kg (mililiter per Kilogram). For males the dose is half of that. Males produce copious milt after being injected, so although you might read that there is no need to inject males, in fact is better because fertilization rate is significantly increased.
Firstly you must apply anaesthesia to the Koi.
Although it is possible to inject the dose in the muscle, near the dorsal fin, this is not advisable. Especially if your Oyagoi are not big Koi.
The best option is to inject in the abdominal cavity, for both males and females. That means the needle have to go through the skin. You will see that next to the pelvic fin the needle won't find any scale, if you choose the right target point. If you keep the fish with the head being lower than the tail (as in the picture), then internal organs (ovaries, testes) supposedly shift a bit their position and the risk of puncture is reduced. You must place the needle aiming at 45 degrees to the head. The needle must go aprox. 1 cm deep into the belly in fishes of around 35-40 cm. Bigger Koi might need to be injected deeper. If you do it carefully you will feel how after some resistence, getting through skin and muscle, then there is less resistence when the needle enter the abdominal cavity. You might buy some fish in the market and have some practice with them.
Yes, not for the faint-hearted as I told you. I was very worried to damage the internal organs of the fish. A Vet friend of mine came over to teach me how to do it. After that I injected 7 fish and they all are OK, no harm.
You can find precise indications of how to do it in the web. For example, find another picture in
http://www.erikjohnson.com/uploads/displayimage.php?album=1&pos=0

As for Ovaprim information sheet
http://www.syndel.com/spawning/ovaprim_information_sheet.html

Hope these indications are not confusing, my english is rather limited
Good luck,
Diego
Diego Jordano
Spain
pers http://es.geocities.com/estanqueskois/
A.E.K. http://www.elkoi.com

koifishgirl
Koi Kichi

Feb 7, 2005, 9:06 AM

Post #8 of 16 (3283 views)
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Re: [estanque_koi] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

You are doing great eatanque as I can understand what you are telling and thank you for all of your help. I looked at the first website but could not make much of it, and was hopeing that you could give me some more places to look. I have a small female that mass spawns every year and need to try this on her as I will not have lost much if I use her. She is a gin matsuba, and I dont know what male to use with her since I dont have one of the same type. Most of my koi are rubbish as I call it and the ones that are good are still very young koi. I have a male kujaku that I could spawn her with if you think that will produce anything . Crazy

I really want to do a artifical spawn on my kohaku but she is only 16 inches and have been told that she is to small. I will not get good results if I spawn her. Said she needed to be at least 4years old. As far as going to the market a buying big fish around here well you just cant do that . I can only find koi around 4 inches here and the one that are big enough are very expensive, so that is out of the question. I have about 4 koi that are at least 4 years old but they are still small for their age. I dont know why they have not grown much, when I got them they grew like crazy the first summer and then the next year they just almost stoped. From what I understand the koi that spawn early will only grow about a inch a year. Another reason maybe I should hold off on doing the spawn on my momotaro koi as I dont want to slow her down and how in the world do you do that if she wants to spawn I cant stop her.
I did learn the step taken to do a artifical spawn but they do not give enough indepth details on the subject and no pics as to where to give hormone shots and how deep to put the neddle in and do not say anything about koi dieing after the process is done. I dont want to kill my koi, if i did that would upset me greatly as I love my koi and they are my passion.

How about going to my old thread and look at the female that I have purchased for my parent koi and take a look at her you may be able to tell me if you think she will be ready for a spawn. It is under which would you perfre and why, dttk post this for me. It is under koi App.
Judy

estanque_koi
Koi Lover

Feb 8, 2005, 9:49 AM

Post #9 of 16 (3237 views)
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Re: [koifishgirl] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hello Koifishgirl
I think already posted some URL addresses. A couple of FAO reports on Carp breeding.
Although they are oriented towards mass production, you will find very useful information.
Moreover, they are clear, concise and have many drawings. If you have the patience of saving the different pages, you will get two wonderful eletronic books for free
These are the links
http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/X5085E/X5085E00.HTM
http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0086E/X0086E00.htm

You will find an index of FAO technical reports dealing with aquaculture in
http://www.fao.org/waicent/search/simple_s_result.asp
Some of these reports are also interesting.
I think that is good staff to start with. Then you should visit the Syndel web page. You will find more info and some articles there. Remember that most of the staff dealing with common carp is also appliable to Koi.
Appart from that I have more stuff, but that is harder: scientific papers published in aquaculture journals, technical reports, and the like.

Forgot to mention that you can cut 1 cm off the needle plastic cap. Then place the cap again in position and when you inject the Koi you know for sure the needle won't get in the belly deeper than 1 cm.

Back to spawning. Getting a spawn of several thousands of eggs is not difficult, even using a rather small female. The difficult part is getting some few really good Koi out of that spawn.
The first rule of thumb for the amateur breeder is
no matter how good are your Oyagoi, chances are that you won't get more than a few fingerlings with some potential, if any (I'm talking about Gosanke, Ogons are easier).
Even good japanese breeders using selected oyagoi get as low as 0.6% -even less than that, of selected Tosai!
I mean, if you don't have the skill and resources neded to rear several thousands of fry to fingerlings, then it would be almost impossible that you get any of them with potential.
Second rule, I would say that
being capable to do it, better go for it using at least reasonable oyagoi, not just pond mutts.
After all you will put a lot of time, work and money to raise the fry to fingerlings, so better have some chances of being rewarded with at least some nice tosai.

Don't be so concerned with breeders size. Years ago I had some small Koi poisoned in a new pool. A couple of females were around 15 cm (6 inches) and the autopsy revealed their ovaries full of mature eggs! Size in Koi is not necessarily related to age. Have you hear about "phenotipic plasticity"? Does the term "bonsai Koi" sounds familiar to you?
Anyway, you could have a female 3 years old and 14 inches, and she can spawn. Some males certainly can make it with 10 inches. Maurice Cox referred in other forum that his nisai Momotaro Kohaku spawned in one of Momotaro mudponds with some male Tosai! Aparently some predator fish in charge of wipping the pond off remaining culls didn't their job completely, and when some nisai females were introduced in the pond to grow further -BIG SURPRISE! the males managed to get at least some of them spawning...

Yes, you will hear that oyagoi must be 5, 6 or whatever number of years old to be suitable. Right, at that age you know more about his/her development and real value. BUT, it is a fact that genes don't change with age. So any Oyagoi that is producing good offspring at the age of (say) seven years old, was able to do so at the age of three.
While right to start with breeding you are not aiming at getting excellent jumbo tosai, you might indulge yourself in using still young and relatively small oyagoi.

Concerning early spawning and reduced growth, my limited experience doesn't support that view. Last spring I used a Sanke female as Oyagoi. I reared her since she was 2 inches! She had been the slowest Koi growing in my terraced roof. Well, last spring she was around 34 cm (13.6 inches) and spawned aproximately 30.000 eggs. In late July (29th) she was 37 cm (around 15 inches) and took her to a 600 Ton pond with daily renoval of 200 tons (1 Ton = 1.000 liters = 264 USA gallons). There were another 4 Sanke in the pond. She grew to 47 cm (18 inches) during august, september and early october. The increase in volume was amazing. Hence, conditions play a major role in development.

I couldn't find the thread you mentioned with the picture of our Koi. Anyway, I'm not expert in crosses and can't tell you what you could expect from a Gin Matsuba x Kujaku cross.
Maybe at this stage you should be happy with getting some natural spawning of a given pair and rear several hundreds of fry to fingerling size, just to learn more and get ready for more serious attempts in comming years.

Almost forgot to tell you that you can avoid spontaneus spawns by taking appart males from females (separate ponds), or at least keep appart your favourite females.

Best regards,
Diego
Diego Jordano
Spain
pers http://es.geocities.com/estanqueskois/
A.E.K. http://www.elkoi.com

koifishgirl
Koi Kichi

Feb 8, 2005, 11:46 PM

Post #10 of 16 (3214 views)
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Re: [estanque_koi] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi estanque I will pull the page to the top and you can comment if you like their? I would really like for you to take a look at her, she is not mature yet I dont think anyway as you cannot see any roundness in the middle so it may be next year before I am able to spawn her. I might see about putting a little money with her a getting a little bigger female since everone thinks it would be best. As far a room I have two acres to raise my fry and I hope that is enough to get them to the size that I can take what I think is the best and make a thread and post pics for the very experienced to take a look at for me and help me with my first spawn from start to finish because if I dont get uguys help I will not make it to my goal. I only know about white koi and deformed koi and koi that have maybe say one hi spot on the gills and the rest white and still not sure if I should cull that as hi can come in later. I want to keep all koi to at least 4 mo. of age before I do a cull so I can see what happens with pattern and color.
Thanks for the info and I will more than likely try this on my ogon this spring and see what I come up with just as a learning experience. She is about 3 years of age and is a small koi but she get very fat with eggs and should produce a fair amount of eggs. The hard part will be gettting rid of the fry after takeing the time to do a artifical spawn and putting so much into these little one it kind of makes it hard to cull. I am sure that I will end up laying all to rest since they wont be a true line.
Judy

estanque_koi
Koi Lover

Feb 9, 2005, 6:03 AM

Post #11 of 16 (3203 views)
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Re: [koifishgirl] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hello -Judy?
I saw the pictures of your Momotaro Kohaku and Sanke.
They are both very nice, but I do prefer the Sanke.
However, I believe you must wait. They both look
too young and inmature.
Good luck,
Diego Jordano
Spain
pers http://es.geocities.com/estanqueskois/
A.E.K. http://www.elkoi.com

koifishgirl
Koi Kichi

Feb 10, 2005, 1:22 AM

Post #12 of 16 (3176 views)
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Re: [estanque_koi] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Yes estanque that is what I thought , so I will try to find a older female to spawn. It is hard to find good parent koi that I want because of price. The older the koi the more money, why is it that the dealers have to charge so much for a koi?
Judy

douglezzz
Koi Lover

Feb 14, 2005, 8:11 PM

Post #13 of 16 (3057 views)
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Re: [koifishgirl] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

It's like this:
In order to get koi from Niigata you must purchase enough for the boxing and trucking and airline fees to make it affordable to bring in fish.
I have 225,000 gallons of water with 4 pumps running.
The electric is $700 a month.
Property tax and insurances are $2,000 a month.
My minimal order, to placed this week , is $21,000... It's not allot of fish.
My spring order for tosai, will be around $ 15,000
I use 40 lbs of pellets and allot of fresh food, each week, whether I'm selling fish or not.
Like any thing else. It's the overhead of the handler that brings the consumer prices up.
Now you can fly over to Japan and get some nice broodstock for several hundred a piece and have them shipped back to you, with no real guarooontee as to what may happen to the fish by the time they reach your home OR. Buy from a reputable dealer.
You seem to be under the " Momotaro Mystique" so I suggest Kevin Pham as your source. Crazy

Wear protective clothing until the far infra red rays wear off of the fish... LOL

koifishgirl
Koi Kichi

Feb 16, 2005, 10:16 PM

Post #14 of 16 (3019 views)
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Re: [douglezzz] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Well,,, where is Kevin Pham
Judy

Lauts
Koi Lover

Apr 15, 2005, 3:11 PM

Post #15 of 16 (2673 views)
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Re: [estanque_koi] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hello Mr Jordano ,

On the issue of egg stripping from kois do you need to apply hormone ? You see I have a very pregnant Chagoi given to me but I do not have facility and mature males to breed it . Can I strip the female of eggs ? Do I need to ? Will the female be OK thereafter ? pls advise .

Rgd
Lau

estanque_koi
Koi Lover

Apr 17, 2005, 3:28 PM

Post #16 of 16 (2583 views)
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Re: [Lauts] Artifical Spawn [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

Hello Lau,
Some gravid females look like they are going to explode. Especially if they have what is called "pot belly" (this is in fact an undesired trait).
Anyway, usually there is not problem. Your female chagoi should reabsorb the eggs with time. Shortage of food supply can speed up the process of reabsorbing the eggs.

I have had two females kept alone (without males) that started to spawn in a breeding tank before adding the mopes and the males. Being moved two days before to the indoor (greenhouse) breeding tank, the sudden change in water condintions, mainly temperature, could have trigger the spawn.

In order to strip the eggs from your female chagoi you would need to anaesthesize heri, inject (intraperitoneal) the appropiate hormone dose according to her weight and wait around 24 h. Anaesthesize her again and strip the eggs. There are some obvious risks involved in the process, you don't want to experiment with your chagoi, do you?
Good luck,
Diego
Diego Jordano
Spain
pers http://es.geocities.com/estanqueskois/
A.E.K. http://www.elkoi.com

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