Scale carp - Cyprinus carpio - 12-18 cm

The scale carp is the fully scaled variant of Cyprinus carpio - the well-known representative of the Cyprinidae family is an excellent food fish. However, scale carp are also desirable inhabitants for a large garden pond. The body of the scale carp is brownish, olive or mud green, the body shape is high-backed, the fish can form a real hump. Scale carp can sometimes grow up to one meter long, live up to 50 years and weigh about 35 kg. We deliver our scale carps as a trio. They are available in a size of 12-18 cm.

The scaled carp has also been bred by man in carp ponds for a long time and has not much in common with the wild carp. Farmed carp have been known since the Middle Ages. Depending on the state of feeding, the scaled carp can appear quite round. In nature, carp prefer warm, shallow river arms and stagnant waters. They can be found as far as estuaries with brackish water.

Purely externally, the sexes cannot be distinguished in carp. Therefore, if you want to breed carp, you should choose a slightly larger base stock, provided your pond is large enough. This increases the likelihood that you will have both sexes in your carp group, making offspring in the pond possible. You can socialize scale carp well with other varieties of carp, such as mirror carp.

The sociable carp need above all space in the pond and an extensive shallow water zone, in which the water can warm up faster. However, deeper zones up to 150 cm pond depth should also be planned so that the fish can be left in the garden pond in winter because the water does not freeze through to the bottom. In winter, the carp lie at the bottom of the pond in hibernation. For pond hibernation, an ice freezer for the water surface is mandatory, because otherwise the fish may run out of oxygen. In summer, pond oxydarors, water features or outflow stones provide an improved oxygen supply.

Scaled carp become sexually mature after the third summer. Then the carp spawn in May and June - the water temperatures must be between 20 and 27° C  for this. To spawn, female carp prefer dense stands of plants, where they lay their up to 20,000 eggs - but by no means all of them grow large. The young carp initially feed on very small live foods such as rotifers, other protozoa, nauplii and other small zooplankton. In a sufficiently large garden pond with enough biofauna, the fry do not need to be fed. If your population of scale carp in the pond grows too much,  you should remove animals from time to time.

Scaled carp are excellent algae eaters. They are very happy to feed on algae coverings and even filamentous algae, but also softer water plants - whereas water lilies, for example, tend to be left alone. Carp also frequently forage in soft bottom mud, where they suck up worms, crustaceans, snails, insects and insect larvae with their underslung mouths. As a result of this burrowing, the water in the carp pond is sometimes quite murky. Such a garden pond needs a correspondingly large, powerful pond filter. The peaceful scaled carp are leisurely contemporaries and are slow swimmers. They can be well socialized with various other pond fish.

Scaled carp are uncomplicated to feed. If there is not enough natural food in the pond, the carps should be fed with a commercial food for koi or with a special food for carps. Scaled carp can become amazingly trusting through feeding and will then take the food from your hand. However, you can also accustom the pond fish well to feeding from an automatic feeder.

Minimum order quantity: 3 animals
Size: 12-18 cm