First of a million questions to come. Will fhm spawn in muddy water? New pond finally filled with a large rain and is very muddy. I put a 20 pound mix of fhm and rosey reds in about 1.5 months ago. Just wondering if they will spawn.

On a side note I have been building this pond for over 2 years and using a lot of advice from here. About 1.25 acres. And love pond boss magazine as well. Just got my first issue.

They should. FHM can do well in poor water quality.

You can help the FHM out by giving them some substrate for spawning. They spawn on the underside of things in shallow water so pallets, wax coated cardboard floated on surface and tied in place, string of flower pots on a rope, lots of things that they can use the underside of for the male to provide a spawning area.

FHM breeding like crazy video

Edit: the males protect their nesting area and are territorial. So they either need to be able to have a couple square foot area each or a nest where adjacent males can not be seen. Keep that in mind when you provide breeding areas. The males can't stack right up next to each other.

I have observes the males excavate loose soil out from under a rock and use the under side of a rock also. So coarse rock in shallow water will also work. Without proper spawning substrate FHM will find a way to reproduce. But proper structure will let them reproduce much more extensively with higher larval survival.

I have a bunch of spawning habitat for them. I just did not know if they would do well in the mucky water. Thank you.

In muddy water, more males can be found per square foot than in clearer water due to what snrub said, they can't see competing males till close together.