one of the more stressful tasks....

..... was draining down one of the ponds with my kohaku hatchlings this evening. I spent the last 48 hours closely observing the tank to make sure there was a decent enough survival rate to give them one of the fry ponds. It's was a 50/50 decision, and it's very difficult to estimate the numbers. I'm bumping up against contraints at each turn, and they are coming thick and fast during this stage of the project. Not least, having enough spare time! I'd like to have had more hatchlings, but waiting for more spawnings will take several weeks and I may not have a spawning that delivers serveral 10's of k's of hatchlings in my first year - so I'm banking what I've got and have moved them into the chestnut fry pond so I can start gaining fry pond experience.

The shiro spawning from this weekend had at most a 20% fertilisation rate, so I'm already concerned about the hatch rate there too. I'll know more next weekend.

Here are some pics from today.

there they are!



and here is a small selection. little blighters have been sticking to the bottom of the pond for the last couple of days, but today there were far more free swimming fry. And with the working week starting again tomorrow, I decided today was the day to put them into chestnut pond.

draining down the pond using garden hoses to syphon water straight into chestnut fry pond. It took a while, but was straight forward in the end.



I reduced tank volume using boxes to prop up the sides to keep the pool of water deep enough for the syphoning
For the last half an hour as I brought the tank sides closer together, there was a constant stream of hatchlings being sucked through the hose and into chestnut fry pond. It was very difficult to see them against the white mottled base, and it was only in this last phase that I had a better view of what I'd produced. It was no where near as many as I would have liked - and I have a few ideas for increasing the yield next time around.