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Hi Jason, Mike, Thanks for the compliments. To be fair, this sanke when I bought her as a 3.5 yr old has everything you can ask for. The only flaw is the lack of Odome. The hi is persimon,thick and very even. The Sumi cannoy be faulted but needed improvement. She was a little slender. My job was to maintain her qualities, improve the Sumi and bulk her up. So right from the start it is a heavy responsibility.
The following is the description of the pond she was raised in. After she was fostered by Dtbh, i had the pond's filter system modified.
My Pond is 16 X 12 X 5.5 ft (25 tons) filter is 40 % the surface area. I was only 1 year into the hobby and it was a struggle to keep good water with overstocking. Water is tap water with Ph of 8. Pond is partially shaded. I use Brushes for mechanical filtration in 1st 2 chambers and the rest of 5 others are bio using Jap Mat.
All bio chambers are aerated. I have a 30 " uniring diffuser in the pond which is powered by a 120 watt air pump to provide aeration and air curtain to draw shit into the centre bottom drain. This with two other bottom drains feeds the 2 mech chamber. I flush bottom drains of all the filter chambers and the pond daily. This is equivalent to 5% water change daily. I use
I use 2 tsurumi 12000litre per hour submiserble pumps. one returns the water through 3 venturis and the other to a water feature.
I had been feeding my kois 3 times daily different brands of pellets like Hikari High protein but for the last 1 year fed good quality hi protein pellets produced by my koi dealer. It does not contain color ingredients. However I will feed color food 45 days prior to a competition and will fast the koi the last 7 days.
I dont have a problem with maintaining Hi on my kois bcos I had not been able to feed heavily without messing up the water. Usually kois eat very well in our all year round summer weather and will grow very fast. The Hi development cannot catch up with the growth and this thins out the Hi.
In our circle, my pond is known for producing excellent Sumi. I never did test my water parameters to find out why. I have a friend down the road who has same water source, his kois' Sumi dont do well. Maybe I shud do a test.
As you can see from this Sanke, the Hi has been very stable and the Sumi has devloped very well and sumis specs developed into larger laquer black Sumi. Sumi is the most important judging criteria for Sanke in competition.
Since April 2004, she has been taken care of by Dtbh who has been extremely successful in growing kois large and with good quality. So I was quite thrilled that he agreed to foster her. She has developed really well. She doesnt grow longer but much wider. Dbth did what I couldnt achieve no matter what I did. She is fed 8 times aday on high protein supplemented some color feed and silk worm. This koi is considered a finished koi.
I hope I didnt bore you guys.
RgdsHWONG
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