You'll see from this article that anyone can breed exotic Japanese koi at home. To begin with you need to ask yourself how serious are you about getting the best young koi from your fish with a carefully planned koi breeding setup or if you are simply happy to assist you koi to breed naturally in their display pond.

I'm going to go with the first suggestion and explain a system for breeding koi that will produce excellent quality young koi.

First of all carefully select your koi for breeding. Males must be at least two years old and females three. Always select your best fish for breeding as they will produce the best offspring. One female koi can produce up to 400,000 eggs, so you don't need all your koi to breed to get plenty of fry. Breeding similar koi types based on color and shape will improve the likelihood of offspring exhibiting their parent's features. Some of the most selectively bred, prized koi, are in fact very inbred!

When breeding koi you will need two to three males for every female. Spring will trigger your fish into priming themselves for spawning. Males will display what looks like pimples on their pectoral fins and females will be fatter than males. Leading up to breeding your koi it is necessary to separate males from the female koi. This can be done in your large display pond using a divider or barrier, or move your fish into separate ponds. Feed your fish on quality koi food. This will bring them into top condition for breeding.

Set up a pond for your koi to breed in. The pond needn't be large, a baby's paddle pool would even do. Place a large clump of non-toxic fibrous medium in the pond in which the female koi will be able to disperse her eggs. Ideally Spanish moss should be used, however a large clump of evergreen tree branches tied together and weighted down will also do the job. The koi breeding pond will need a heater.

Introduce your koi and gradually raise the water temperature by about five degrees F. It won't take too long before your male Japanese koi begin chasing your female koi around the pond. This usually takes place early in the morning and can go on all day. She will be pursued around the pond then into the clump of branches where she will shed her eggs with the male koi fertilizing them. The eggs will stick to the submerged bush.

Once your breeding koi have finished spawning, it is important to remove the parent fish as they will eat the eggs. Alternatively you can remove the branches and place them in a fresh pond. Depending on water temperature the eggs should hatch within a few days. The young koi fry will survive off their yolk sacks for a day or two and then will need feeding with an appropriate food specifically meant for fry, such as daphnia. Feed the fry for two to three weeks with this special diet, and then you can feed them with crushed koi pellets. Keep an eye on water quality, especially if the pond is small as fry will die easily if it becomes polluted with rotting koi eggs or dying fry. You won't be able to run a pump and filter with your pond as it will suck up the minute fry, killing them.

Koi fry grow rapidly and as they grow they will develop their colors. In order to have only the best fish you need to cull all undesirable fry, only keeping the best quality young koi. If you don't heed this advice you will end up with a pond full of lesser fish.

Well there you have it… breeding koi is easy! I wish you all the best with your koi hobby.