Breeding Pond fish & plants

A lot of people keep ponds in their gardens and all of these needs plants and fish for their ponds. You can provided these plants and fish by breeding them in your garden. Most pond fish and ponds plants are easy to breed if you got enough space to do it. I recommend that you set up numerous ponds if you want to do this.

This one requires a lot of work but can give you a very beautiful and profitable garden. A garden filled with a lot of ponds will usually look very good. It can look completely spectacular if you include a lot of flowers around the pondĀ  and some stone work to make it feel more ancient then the garden really is. Most flowers love growing close to a man made pond. They get the humidity from the ponds without having to have their roots in the water since the pond liner makes sure that no water seeps into the surrounding dirt.

The best design for an earning garden focusing on pond fish and pond plants depends on which species you want to breed an sell. But a good option is often to have one or two large ponds in the sun. The larger the better. And a lot of smaller ponds in partial shade. These smaller ponds can vary in size between 10 and 40 ft2. The smaller ponds will be used for breeding and for the fry. The larger ponds will be used to propagate water lilies and for growing out fish.

With this said it is time to look a little bit closer at what species of fish and plants I recommend that you focus on breeding. Remember that you do not need to focus exclusively on pond fish, you can also breed aquarium fish in your ponds during the summer. If you want to do this you will need a room indoors where you store your broad stock and any fish not yet sold during the winter. Many species of aquarium will fish multiply very quickly if kept outdoor in a pond during the summer.

Breeding goldfish

There are many different types of goldfish out there. The original goldfish, comet goldfish and other short finned version with a stream lined body are most suitable for ponds. Fish with a rounder body and longer finds swims slower and are a lot more likely to get eaten by birds in a garden pond. Many people will however despite this put long fined goldfish in their ponds. You might therefore want to breed a variety of different types. Goldfish are easy to breed and produce very large batches of fry. The parents should be removed after the eggs have been laid or they will eat their eggs. A small number of fry can survive with their parents but you need to remove the parents to breed themĀ  effectively.

The price of goldfish will vary greatly depending on the quality of the goldfish. Regular run of the mill goldfish are very cheap. High quality goldfish on the other hand can cost many thousand dollars each. Growing high quality goldfish is a lot more demanding and require more expensive broad stock. A large percentage of all fry will not meet the standard required to sell for high prices. I recommend that you start by breeding run of the mill goldfish with the long term goal of breeding high quality goldfish. Once you are skilled enough and know enough about goldfish you can chose to purchase more expensive goldfish to breed.

Breeding Koi

Koi carps grows a lot bigger then goldfish but have similar requirements. Make sure you learn all you can about koi since there are important differences in their care compared to goldfish. Do not keep goldfish and koi together if you want to breed them for profit. Run of the mill Koi are cheap while champion koi can be worth hundreds of thousands. Most high priced koi is breed in japan but there are other high quality breeders as well. I recommend that you initially focus on breeding run of the mill koi and mid level koi. If your really love koi you can start trying to breed higher quality koi at a later date. Please know that to do so requires a good eye and a lot of dedication. You might have to go through 1 000 000 fry to find one champion grade koi. To breed high quality koi can be very profitable but it should not be something you do for money. If you want to succeed it has to be a passion. If you have passion then the success and money will follow.

Breeding aquarium fish

Growing aquarium fish in ponds in the summer can be very profitable since most aquarium stores prefers to by high quality local breed stock rather than imported fish that have traveled far and might be of an inferior quality. If you live in a warmer climate then you can choose to breed aquarium fish in your ponds all year long. If you live in a colder climate then you need to store your broad stock in aquariums indoors during the cold part of the year. Condition your fish to be ready to start spawning the day you move them out into the ponds. Fry that have been raised in outdoors pond often looks better than fry raised in aquariums. This is due to the fact that there is more to eat in a pond.

If you live in a warmer area and want to breed fish out doors all year then you need to chose species that are suitable for you area. I can not give you any recommendations. Read everything you can about aquarium fish to choose the species that are most suitable to your conditions.

If you live in a colder area then you should focus on species with a fast live cycle that can tolerate slightly colder water. Livebearers can often be a good alternative. There is a big demand for them in the trade. Fancy guppy and platy allows you to make a lot of money since they reproduce quickly and sells for a decent price. You can breed them indoors during the winter to be able to provide the fish stores with fish all year round. Many other species can also be grown in ponds during the summer. This includes several types of cichlids as well as cories and a number of other species.

Breeding turtles

If you live in an area where the climate allows it then you can use your ponds to breed different types of turtles for the pet market. Most turtles are easy to breed and to do so can be profitable if you choose to breed more expensive species. If you live in a colder area you can do this in a heated greenhouse.

Please note that the turtles will lay their eggs on land and it is important to provide suitable protected nesting sites. It is also important to make sure that the turtles don’t escape into the wild. Doing so can cause great damage to local populations of turtles. This is true even if the turtles are native to your area.

You might need a permit to keep and breed certain turtle species.

Pond plants

The easiest way by far to propagate and sell pond plants is to have a large pond where you allow the plants to grow freely and where you regularly harvest part of the population. Water lilies and many other pond plants will propagate very quickly once they have become well established in a pond. I usually recommend that you give them 2-3 years before you start harvesting plants from the ponds. This give the plants a chance to establish a healthy population before you start harvesting plants.

Stem plants and smaller plants are often best propagated in special ponds devoted to these plants. These ponds should be at-least 2 ft deep and in full sun. These ponds can be used to breed some fish species at the same time as they are used to propagate plants.

You can also import small bulbs from Asia and grow them out in your ponds to sell them on the local market. This can be a good way to be able to offer a wide selection of different types of water lilies and other bulb plants.