The most rewarding part of being a pond owner is watching your baby koi grow into full-sized fish. Yes, that’s right, sooner or later the fish in your pond are going to have babies. Around late spring to early summer, koi and goldfish start spawning. As the fish spawn, they reproduce thousands of eggs. Only a few of them survive and become baby fish. Koi are known for scattering their eggs and depositing them on the pond floor or in plants.
Bulk Up the Babies
Once the eggs hatch in a few days, the babies begin to feed off the microorganisms in your pond. At this point, the fish are microscopic in size, so don’t expect to see them swimming around until after a few weeks. After a couple of months, the fish are approximately an inch long and ready to eat commercial fish food. Find fish food such as Aquascape Premium Fish Food Pellets that contain a high protein content to bulk up your newborn fish. If you’re using bigger pellets, be sure to grind them up so the babies can ingest them.
Monitor Your Koi in the Winter
Toward the end of the summer, you need to decide if you’re going to move the fish inside or leave them in the pond over the winter. As long they have enough fat to tide them over, it’s safe to keep the fish outside. If you still think they’re too small, go ahead and move them to an indoor tank with adequate filtration. Just make sure there’s enough room for them to grow in the tank.
Leave Plenty of Room for Growing Koi
Always remember, as the baby koi continue to grow over the years, they may cause overcrowding in your pond. You can always expand your pond to make the room or find them a new home with a pond retailer/contractor. The entire process of raising baby fish is a tremendous and fun learning experience for any pond owner.