Craig, It took them 9-10 years to get this size. This is the first spring they've ever shown an interest in spawning. They didn't chase each other around, just kept wanting to go into the skimmer box and once I put the screening over the opening, they hung around it and spawned on the screening. It was nothing like koi or goldfish spawning. What I've read about them is that they prefer dark "caves" to spawn in (maybe that's why they wanted in the skimmer box) and must have moving water. Can't prove any of it by me cause this is a first for us. Jan

Large bullfrogs are a tadpole for 2 years. If things ate them ther would be no frogs on earth. The way they have protection is their Tails. If I put 3 five gal buckets of bulfrog tadpoles in a take on my fish truck an a fish gets in there the fish will be dead in a few mins. This is because of the poison in the tadpoles tails getting into the water. So no fish will eat tadpoles. Now I have seen here Hybrid bluegills eat toad tadpoles. This is because a toad is a tadpole just a few weeks and does not have the 2 years tail protection like the big frogs need. I ahv raised fish 40 years now and hate having 50,000 frog tadpoles in apond with fish then drain it and have to SORT by hand 1-2-3-4-50,000 tadpoles from the fish. Bar graders do not work if the fish are the same size, you have be careful not to mix then in a small tank and kill fish. My fish farm is for sale now and hope i do not have sort tadpoles soon :( rest my life :( Type LIVE FISH OF INDIANA for photos --i dont think i still haev tadpole pictures there ?

You're right Ann. One spawn may produce 50,000 fry. They know from the breeding if the fry should be white or black (showa and shiro utsuri fry are black and get their colors later, most other varieties start out white) so they can start culling at 2 weeks discarding any offspring that isn't the right color. Then they cull again and again, until they have maybe 5000 left. Of those, most will still be pond grade but at least sellable. Some look pretty nice as 6" fish but do not have what it takes to go the distance, so they color them up really nicely with color enhancing feeds and export them. They get sold for as little as $10 each. The dealers here pay shipping and then mark them up (sometimes mark them WAY up) and sell them proudly as Japanese imports for up to $100. They may look great now, but will probably not look so great in a few years. the ones that the breeders see some potential....the ones with good patterns, good bodies, and deep beni (red) get put back into the mud ponds for a year. Then their price goes WAY up.....or sometimes when they are harvested their price goes down because what the breeder was looking for did not happen. So it is culled, exported and sold here as a nisai (2 year old). What a koi buyer has to keep in mind is ALL fish that are offered for sale were selected by the breeder to be culled because of something he did not like. The price depends on how close to perfect the fish is when it is culled. Although some things can't be seen in pictures (like skin quality and depth of beni), I'll be happy to look at your fish and tell you the good and bad about them. I am not a koi judge, but do have a pretty good eye.

Hi there I am new on here but have found the info valuable so far so thanks to all. I think we have just made a HUGE mistake with our new pond. We originally dug a pond 6ft by 9 ft by 2ft deep and kept seven goldfish in it which wintered well and seemed happy. Being bitten by the fishkeeping bug we then dug a larger pond on the raised area above the original pond which is 15ft by 20ft but we miscalculated the depth. We originally planned 2ft 6" but when it was filled we realised it was less than two feet deep. By this time we had moved the fish into place and have been given two smalll koi and three Golden orfe along with another bucket full of goldfish so 29 in all. The water surface is plentiful but i am worried about the lack of depth. We have a large rubber liner in it which is now trimmed to size and rocked over and planted out around the edges. so to change this would mean a complete redig. Has anybody any ideas whereas we could cut the middle out of the liner and dig the middle bit a lot deeper then join on a new piece of liner? I think this could be an option. I dont want unhappy fish but my husband is groaning at the thought of rebuilding the whole thing.!