| Hi Paul!
First and foremost thanks for taking the time to post and share your koi with us!
I want to take a different track than what you asked, but hopefully it will give you the opportunity to adjust your thinking about your koi.
Your job, now that you've aquired a koi with some bloodline and breeding behind it ; is to provide it with the very best conditions you can
to allow it to become the best it can be. By focusing every day on improving water quality and serving the needs of your koi you will start the journey towards completion for the both of you. Your koi will improve and your ability as a koi keeper will also. When you both have done the very best you can, then you turn what's out of your control over to the team of judges and accept their decision knowing full well you could not have done anything more. Now that's a koi keeper!
In my 25 years of koi keeping, I have seen all kinds of winners at the shows. The kind that buys their winner and brings them in weeks before the show, takes the acolades and then procedes to ruin the koi so that it is unshowable in the future. I have also seen koi keepers who bring a koi in, win with it and then when the bans are lifted in a few years bring the GC back again, largely improved so that it wins again! Now that's a koi keeper! The same can be said for the keeper who doesn't win a place at the show but his koi are always competitive and at the top of their game.
While i'm rambling here are somethings for you to ponder. I have 4 koi in 4,000 gallons. 25 % of that water is state of the art filtration including bakki shower and J-mat upflow in settling vortexes that are so well aireated that it looks like a jacuzzi in there. Nothing settles anywhere because of air and current except in the vortexes that are drained a minimal of once a day. 10 % of the water is exchanged daily thru a trickle system of fresh water thru activated charcoal. I use various food manufacturers products so as not to bore the koi and their appetites. I never use a product with color enhancer! I like to provide other natural foods to peak the koi's interest. I check my water parmeters every few days. (yes it's boring it always tests out the same but on the few occassions when it tried to go sideways, I knew it well ahead of time to make the necessary adjustments. I have a heated pond and control the water temperature to allow the koi to experience four full seasons. The best I ever did show wise was reserve grand champion from a tosai i bought and nutured over the years.
I like your kohaku very much! believe in it and yourself! other's may not see past the red in the pec, but you will.( they will in a few years as well!) |