# Koi/Fancy Plakat Female X Dalmation/Marble/Butterfly Halfmoon Male



## lookimawave

My first spawn! 

May I present: Princess Kaguya (Koi/Fancy Plakat Female) X Fury road (Dalmation/Marble/Butterfly Halfmoon Male)








​My goal is to produce orange/white/black HM koi. Basically her colors and his finage. I don't understand why most of the koi betta are red/white/black. To me koi are orange! 


If you want to hear the ramblings in my head along with learning some things not to do on your first spawn >_>, read on!

46gal Bowfront Filled 4in
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
nitrates: <5
PH: 6.8
Gh: ~150
temp: 80

Day before floated female in male tank for 30 min then put them back into their respective halves of the divided 46 Bowfront. They do the waggle dance but also look like they want to kill each other. Did a vacuum and 20% water change. Have bubble wrap and ial that he's blown a few puny bubbles under. Hardly a nest.

Sat 9/12
8:30am remove the divider carefully watching for signs of murder. Both parties receptive and surprisingly gentle. She checks out his lame nest and is not impressed. Starts being more distant (plus he nipped her, rude) Maybe I'll have to separate them and try again tomorrow. I'll give them more them. He's blowing a few more bubbles and then checking up on her like is this good enough? This goes on for a while. I add more stress coat and kordon fish protector to help w the bubbles.

1pm? Noon? They start embracing finally! No eggs though. Is he doing it wrong? Did I not condition her well enough so she doesn't have many eggs? Did I feed her too much so she's too fat to wrap around?

1:30pm. I check on them in the middle of my lunch and there are eggs on the bottom of the tank! Like 10 of them! Yay! But dad is completely ignoring them. He's trying to shore up his sad looking nest then going back for more embraces. She's going for the eggs. She ate them. All is lost my pair don't know what they're doing. Spawn failed. Wait! She spit them into the nest! Maybe not all 10 but def some! Good girl! Another embrace, one egg which he ignores. Next embrace, 2 eggs, ignored. She eats them or maybe adds them to nest, probably ate them. Next embrace no eggs. Maybe I'll get a handful of fry. This goes on for a while, she adds some to the nest and eats some. He's a terrible father. Still just adding to his nest between hugs. That's ok I didn't want a large spawn anyway (more than 10 but ok). Oh this time she dropped 2 and he caught them! Oh and again! He's still trying to add to his nest. If you had done this in advance you wouldn't be having this problem. Must take after his owner. She's starting to drop way more eggs, like 20+ each hug and he's catching almost all of them! He only misses one every once in a while. She eats them sometimes sometimes adds them to the nest. The snail poop doesn't help them to see the eggs. I just vacuumed last night. Snails make so much poop. I must have like 300+ eggs though . Looks like they really got the hang of this despite a slow start










4:00 she runs away from the nest. Approaches again and then leaves as the male is busy. Does this mean they're done? I have enough eggs that's for sure. I separate them. Kaguya has a few nips, not bad. Fury road it's hard to tell bc the cellophane tail. Also I think he did a tiny bit of tail biting. Later I see her drop an egg and eat it. Maybe they would have spawned more. He's busy tending nest and patrolling. There doesn't seem to be so many eggs in the nest. Maybe a bunch weren't fertilized and got eaten. He's adding bubbles. So many more bubbles. Maybe by the morning his side will be like one huge bubble bath.

I know I'm not supposed to do anything now but I do a quick vacuum.

The tank is cycled 46 gal w live plants that aren't doing so well bc of changes in water chem. i used tap water during cycling and slowly switched over to zero water (it's like RO - 0harness 6.0 or lower ph) with hardness (cichlid salt and seachem replenish) added back in and buffered up from 6.0 to 6.8. (I'm using inherited proper 7.0 but it only brings it up to 6.4 for some reason. I'm debating ordering a new bottle or just using baking soda). Im also considering adding more salt but maybe that will harm the plants further. Some totally melted, some ive trimmed the bad parts off as best I could. During cycling I managed to grow lots of infusoria and nematodes. There are some tiny things, some planeria (~1mm), and some roundworms/segmented worms maybe (1cm). The pair ate most of the worms when I released them but I put a bunch of mulm in a jar (my worm culture) which I fed during conditioning. Yay free live food. But I also fed pellets and freeze dried foods. Go ahead and judge. Water is further conditioned with prime, stress coat, kordon fish protector, ial, Amazon extract, and a tiny bit of salt. I have a few small sponge filters throughout the tank. They're bubbling moderately on moms side and there is one on dads side set in very low.

Sun 9/13
Looking good. Bubbles overflowing from under ial. Hopefully I'll have tails by tomorrow morning. I tried to count and got like 40-50. That's a lot of eaten eggs









Mon 9/14
7:40 I see tails! Wow they are really hard to see. 










I tried to count and I think I have 40-50. So far so good. They do a good job of staying in the nest. Sometimes they bob like they're jumping in an upside down air bed.

Like 10 min after I wrote that babies start falling like crazy. Maybe some are dead? At least one doesn't even try to stay up it just sinks right away. Oh it moved. Phew. Dad you're supposed to put him back up. No, over there dad. Maybe he gave up on that one. Meanwhile it looks like I have some Cyanobacteria going on .

Dad has eaten a few pellets. He also eats a worm whenever he finds one.

That one trouble kid is now hanging onto dads back. He fell off somewhere while dad was patrolling. I found him and put him back in the vicinity of the nest. Dad found him. Yay he finally stuck up there! I'm helping . 

Dad ate 5-6 pellets. He goes patrolling and hunting for worms sometimes. Sometimes he gets distracted and starts surfing the glass. I worry. He's not very good at hunting worms either. Bad eyesight (not comforting)? What if the worms eat the babies alive? He's also really bad at remembering to look for fallen fry. He's good at catching movement though.

Some of the floating plants managed to end up right under the nest. At least a couple of fry are hanging to the hair algae growing on it. Is this bad for them? They're not the healthiest plants. Should I try to move them or will I just disturb everything? This is too stressful I'm going to bed.

Tues 9/15
Ok not all fry dead on the bottom. I do see at least 3 lying there. Sweet dad got them. 0 dead babies so far!

Throughout the day there are usually bw 4-6 fry on the bottom. Dad doesn't really see them

9pm I have one free swimming fry! Hmm where did he swim off to? Oh he's close to the nest eyeing me. He should have some infusoria to eat. I'll feed vinegar eels when I see more free swimming. I wonder if the ones on the plant are going to make it. Or the ones on the bottom :/. Dad is at the end of his attention span. He's away from the nest more than in it seems. I think a bunch of these guys are semi free swimming. I saw one guy try to eat some infusoria. I fed some vinegar eels after all.

Mom is already fat w eggs?! . She dropped some while pooping  20+ in one spot and some more scattered around. Prob she ate some too. 

Wen 9/16

8AM Fry are free swimming. There are a few on the bottom maybe w swim bladder issues? Feeding vinegar eels but most prob go uneaten. Fry are scattered all over. But tank is big enough that I don't have to worry too much about fouling the water. Tomorrow I'll introduce the nerites back to the fry half. 

8PM I see dad indiscriminately swallow any fry he can catch and look for more (like 8 maybe), it might have been a minute and he hasn’t spit them out. ((( I cup him and he spits them out, flight response maybe. I wonder if he was eventually going to spit them out by the nest. I also wonder if I would have more fry if I took him out this morning or last night . The most I’ve counted was like 25 but I’m pretty sure I have more than that. One person suggested that I messed with the nest too much and he felt I was a threat and terminated the spawn. Maybe it would have happened no matter what. He’s cupped now. Too bad I really wanted to do the father rearing method. Maybe next time. 

I siphoned in moms side and dripped some new water in. I also introduced the nerites. Partly so I can see better. I also increase the flow on the sponge filter in the fry side of the tank. 

Thurs 9/17

Someone said that males sometimes carry a large number of fry in his mouth for minutes or even hours in order to feed them the food particles in his mouth! How fascinating! Now I wish I had given dad more time. Next time I guess. I haven't seen a fry eat a single vinegar eel. They look at them and then move on. Maybe the infusoria are plentiful (I hope) and easier, smaller prey so there's no point bothering. I'll continue feeding a small amount a few times a day anyway for kicks. The worm population has really picked up since dad has been busy with his fry (and now removed). Hopefully they're having little worm babies for the fry. I see them snapping on little dots sometimes. I think I'm going cross eyed trying to see them eating. Also pooping. Never thought poop was capable of being so cute. I don't see any dead fry. Maybe bc I just can't see them. Maybe bc the snails got them? One fry is kinda bouncing around on the bottom. It almost looks like it has no tail . Like a tiny little frog or something. Or maybe I just can't see it and it's just a swim bladder issue. Maybe I should cull now? Can I feed culls to mom? What if they're sick and they make her sick? What if I damaged him somehow messing with the tank. I tried shaking some of the plants so the infusoria got dispersed. And I pipetted a number of fry. Also dad swallowed some before spitting them back out a minute later when I cupped him so maybe he did it. 

Sat 9/19

Big mistake. I really wanted to clean up the mulm and the snail poop so I did with some airline tubing and I managed to suck up like 6 fry >_<. I ended up putting back most of the dirty water since I couldn't catch them w a turkey baster. I hope I didn't do them too much damage or lose any. 

I went back with a pipette to fish the job T_T. I noticed a number of poor swimmers and one dead fry.

Sun 9/20

Def witnessed vinegar eel eating! Some fry are developing well, some not so much. The little guys seem to hang out together in the corner with the least flow so I'm going to feed there extra. Wow they eat a lot! I was using the filter floss method of harvesting but I think my new way is better. Just look for where the eels are clumping, tilt slightly the other way to lower the level of the vinegar and wipe with a cotton swab. Tons of vinegar eels. It's harder to spread them out this way though. I started a small batch of fairy shrimp and also a batch of brine shrimp. I tried decapsulating the brine shrimp eggs so it's kind of just a test.

I discovered the neutral regulator I've been using is phosphate based which would explain why I'm having such a horrible hair algae outbreak. I wonder if I should just switch to 1/2 RO 1/2 tap water. That will give me low ammonia levels and ~15 ppm nitrates. The BGA is also spreading. It looks like the vinegar dip I gave the plants didn't do much.

Mon 9/21

Brine shrimp hatched well. 0 fairy shrimp hatched though. Some fry eating brine shrimp like crazy. They look like they're gonna pop (this is gross but I'm going to say it) like a ripe pimple (sorry). Some don't seem to recognize the shrimp as food (friends not food). Or maybe they're too big? They don't seem to be trying very hard. I'm feeding vinegar eels too for the slow learners. I think some maybe are still only looking for infusoria to eat? It's so frustrating trying to will them to eat things. Like it was trying to will the dad to pick up fallen fry. Oh well survival of the fittest 

Wen 9/23

Two weeks officially passed! 

​




​


----------



## lookimawave

Hmm... that didn't quite go as planned... Please stand by while I figure out how to fix the photos...

Ok... I'm at a loss...help? The photos I'm posting are on google photos. I click get a sharable link, copy the sharable web address, click insert image icon, paste the link in the dialog box verbatim so the https:// is still there. I've even tried removing the s from https. Any ideas?


----------



## kittenfish

It's not working because you are using the URL of the page, not the image. You have to follow that link, click the image, then right click and select "Copy image URL" or whatever the equivalent is in your browser.



lookimawave said:


> My first spawn!
> 
> May I present: Princess Kaguya (Koi/Fancy Plakat Female) X Fury road (Dalmation/Marble/Butterfly Halfmoon Male)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Parents of the Female
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Some individual photos


----------



## LittleBettaFish

What a uniquely coloured pair. I can't believe the male was a pet store find. 

One point I wanted to bring up (I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not), was to be careful with fry gobbling down too much BBS. Overfeeding of BBS is thought to be linked to fry developing SBD, and based on personal experience, it's not always reversible.


----------



## lookimawave

Thanks kittenfish! I've contacted the mods who are going to fix the original post for me 

Turns out with all the long links the post is over the character limit so I will post individual pics in a different post anyway


----------



## lookimawave

LittleBettaFish said:


> What a uniquely coloured pair. I can't believe the male was a pet store find.
> 
> One point I wanted to bring up (I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not), was to be careful with fry gobbling down too much BBS. Overfeeding of BBS is thought to be linked to fry developing SBD, and based on personal experience, it's not always reversible.


Thanks! I did read that but embarrassingly enough I never had very successful BBS hatch rates so they didn't have the opportunity to overeat BBS. I had to continually supplement with vinegar eels.  Hatch rate improved a bit when I started buffering the BBS hatch water pH up with baking soda.

I read that too many vinegar eels leads to short or missing ventrals but luckily only one guy is missing one of his ventrals (and it could have gotten torn off since i didn't notice it until recently).


----------



## lookimawave

Fury road is a pet store find. He's probably about 6-7 mo old (just a guess) when I got him. He was smallish when I got him and has grown a bit and gotten more finage since. Here's when I first got him, looking more like a delta tail:










Kaguya is a koi Plakat from eBay. She's about 4.25 mo old. Her parents are fancy pks imported from Thailand:










Interestingly enough the spawn Kaguya came from were almost all koi (though they were trying for fancy). But as you can see from Kaguya's progress pics she went from more than half white to completely orange/black with a few white(platinum white vs cellophane white)/red patches. Likely the rest of the "koi spawn" she came from eventually turned fancy as well. This is kind of disappointing on my part because I wanted koi fry, not fancy.

Here's the female when I first received her at 3.5mo



















Vs. 4.25 mo at time of spawning


















Here she is after spawning. Not too bad, Fury Road was so gentle!










I need a better photo but here she is now.


----------



## lookimawave

Here are some individual photos at 2 months:

They're not the best photos  Little buggers don't stay still. I have about 50 of them in total  I didn't keep track but I think I only lost a total of like 7? That includes the 3 I found bitten in half...:shock:


----------



## lookimawave

LittleBettaFish said:


> What a uniquely coloured pair. I can't believe the male was a pet store find.
> 
> One point I wanted to bring up (I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not), was to be careful with fry gobbling down too much BBS. Overfeeding of BBS is thought to be linked to fry developing SBD, and based on personal experience, it's not always reversible.


Oh! I should mention I think I started noticing SBD in some of my fry when I switched to decaps maybe because I was able to overfeed 

Some of them have grown out of it though! None of the ones I've removed from the grow out tank still have it. I think part of it is caused by eating too fast when in competition for food with siblings. Once separated they can take their time 

Everyone is on pellets and freeze dried foods now 

...so much poop. everywhere poop. :|


----------



## kittenfish

Beautiful fish! Did you divide a tank 50 times??


----------



## lookimawave

kittenfish said:


> Beautiful fish! Did you divide a tank 50 times??


Lol no! It would be really hard to divide the 46 gal bowfront. I did divide two 10gal 10 times each and a 5.5 gal 5 times. It was fine when they were smaller but I think they're out growing the footprint now :/ in the 10 gal. I have sponge filters seeding the the grow out tank and I'll pick I up 2 more 10 gals this weekend. I see what you meant about getting swim bladder now when I talk about the fry looking like pimples. Do you think that would impact them later on? Like around 1 mo I did get some swim bladder issues. Do you think that could be from the first week or so of life but just didn't manifest till later? Thanks for your input!


----------



## lookimawave

kittenfish said:


> Beautiful fish! Did you divide a tank 50 times??


Ok I realize now that was littlebettafish and not you but pls cut me some slack bc it's Friday night


----------



## lookimawave

Crazy color changes in the fry! So cool. I had one pair (male and female) of really neat marble/brindle looking one with nice deep purples and blues and pinks and black that kept getting lighter and lighter and within 2 weeks went completely cellophane! Well it's cool and not cool because they looked way better before. The nicest development is that a few are now showing patches of red and black (though weak and messy) who used to be ugly looking red cambodian with black ticking. I almost gave those to LFS as feeders! Fingers crossed


----------



## lookimawave

Some photos: 

The purple boy when he was purple









Faded to this:










Then completely cellophane and now he has a few tiny black spots  (sorry no photo)

This girl used to be boring cambodian. I almost gave her away as fish food. Still not very pretty but maybe she'll develop into more of a dalmation









Flaring photos of one of the first 2 boys I sold. Couldn't get the other guy to flare. The face is a little distorted bc of the curvature of the jar


----------



## trilobite

They are looking awesome! cant wait to see how the marble develops further


----------

