[Sangreaal]

Thanks you guys. I'm happy with my final choice.

Mikado will be shipping with Shiro 143 and Tancho 178, and I will be following their development in this thread along with her, even though they won't be competing in the growout.



Why 143? It looks like one of the ugliest Shiros in the bunch, and I'm not real big on buying ugly early. What intrigued me the most and compelled me to buy is the extreme skin/scaleage on this fish. It's another Pearl gr hopeful, and though it's young and the sumi is transient, it has some serious glow to it. I just have to see it live and up close.

Tancho 178 was not my favorite by a long shot, but then, I'd been beaten out of my first two or three choices by others in line before me and there were little choices left that appealed to me. The sumi is messy, the tancho messy (but perfect when/if the secondary hi cleans up behind it), the skin not half bad. It's got a lot of clearing to do, but my water is a sumi and shiro factory and I think my pond will do it some good. I just hope the tancho sticks. It appears to be thick enough to hang in there and just the right size and shape.

Expect pics and benching of all as soon as they arrive, and a gazillion more to follow as the year travels on. I think there's a good selection of koi here from lightest to strangest to watch go through their changes. Is the growout winner amongst them? Probably not--there were many better looking babies in the group. But this is a crapshoot, right? And these are my double 0 buck....