So many questions... Hah. No specifics here, but I can tell you what to look for. I live in Michigan and my koi start spawning in the middle of May closer to Memorial day. Water temps do matter. Just watch them all the time. When they start chasing each other around nudging the lead female into plant areas, they're up to something. It will start early in the morning before sunrise. Alot of times after a good rain. I catch mine spawning every year, and its because I know what to look for "the signs". It comes with practice. You can see the eggs (like clear greenish dots the size of a pearl on the end of a florist pin). One thing I can tell you is to take some scissors and cut off the plants they lay eggs in if you want to save a lot of babies. They will devour all the eggs. Do this while they are spawning. You can fill a ten gallon aquarium with the water from your pond. No gravel on bottom. Put in a sponge filter or a airstone, and the eggs will hatch in 5 days at room temperature. Feed them newly hatched brine shrimp for a couple days then just crush up the normal food you feed the adults. They will grow faster outside, but, at the risk of being eaten by the adults. I have a small baby pond I use each year just for the eggs. The babies grow very fast in there and I can add them to the main pond by the end of summer. In an aquarium, they will grow very slow, but it may be the only way to save them until they are big enough to add to the pond.

All in all just watch for the chasing. There's no guarantee when or what temps it will happen. Its definitely different behavior.

Goldfish breed when the water is cool. Somewhere between 70-80°F. Do you have any floating plants or anacharis in the pond? They love to lay their eggs on plants. Good luck.

Happy ponding,
Scott

You just don't know what you're asking for. LOL

If I remember correctly Scott lives somewhere nice and warm where 70-80F water is cool. I live in Zone 3, my fish go back in the pond when the water gets between 55-60F. Last year they spawned the second day after going into the pond and quite regularly on cool days (72-75 here. I've never seen eggs but I have goldfish and they seem to eat the eggs as soon as they spawn--saved 7 babies over the season. They did not spawn until the third year in the pond. If you see your fish frantically chasing others they are probably spawning and sometimes you'll get alot of foam in the water esp in the morning.

Your goldfish will spawn when the water temp gets somewhere around 70°F for a few days and they will continue spawning for most of the spring/early summer. If you have enough plants, you will get more than enough babies without doing anything special to try to save the eggs or fry. Your problem will be figuring out what to do with them at the end of the summer.

You know they are spawning when 2 or small groups of them squeeze into the plants repeatedly rubbing against each other.

Jalal, actually, the water can get down to 40°F down here. Our air temps can go down to 18-19°F on the coldest nights.

Happy ponding,
Scott

Thank you everyone for your advice. Yes, I have several plants in the pond. They seem to be swimming around like crazy the last couple of days and she keeps going into the plants...but nothing yet. Happy ponding!!

You really don't know what you are getting into! I too had 4 shubunkin and 4 comets once. Now I have 20+! You will not see the fry till the later this summer and if you see 1, figure 10 or more you don't see. Our pond has been between 55-70 in the past few weeks and I have witnessed the 'dance' for the past week. Last years last spawn made it through the winter. The first spawn are about 4 inches now....the babies about 1 1/2 inches..Both shubunkin and comets...
I am sure we'll need to thin the herd this fall. Too many for the 1600 gallons..

I just set up a small 35 gallon pond, I have put a few fish in 2 sarassa comets and a white comet that I made the guy catch for me, This is a temp home for them and the chase began today. I told them this pond is too small for their babies and they are only in there temp but they did not listen.

My older fish and the new fish in there with them are not doing the chase. The older ones just started moving when I added there new friends, after I lost 20+ fish over a month ago so they may not be in the mood this year.

i have a 90 gallon pond we had 4 fish in it 2 are 3 years old the other two are 2 years old. one of them had babies and i now have some where around 30 babies some look like the shubunkins but some are just plain gold .do pet stores buy babies ? i have them in a 10 gallon tank now.

I live in montana and it is warming up right now, thus fish have started the mating chase...my water temps are about 48-51 right now.

tina

My Father has a pond with comet fish, well they where very active this year. there are 15 babies. My Father has passed away recently and I would like to keep 4 of the babies in a 20 inch tank.. Is it okay to do this or would I need a bigger tank??

Swimmer, I'm sorry to hear about your father and it would be wonderful ifyou could keep some of his fish.

Since comets grow to about a foot long (and I've seen bigger) a 20 inch tank is way too small for one let alone 4. It's a myth that fish grow to fit the size of the container. It's more like they'll get physically stressed and die before their time, also it would be very difficult to keep the water as clean and filtered as it should be.

Is there a place you can put a 100 gal stock tank and create an indoor pond? You could dress it up with plants and such - some people on this forum have created some really cool indoor ponds.