Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tosai_Sunny 
Following the old saying..."you start with kohakus and you will end up with kohakus" or something like that.
I am starting with kohaku. These tosais are the fruits of my labor from my first kohaku spawning venture this past Spring. Unfortunately, I only had room to raise about 300 babies from the spawn so I was forced to give away the rest. I used my 5-year-old Maruyama female with two unknown kohaku males. With my limitted knowledge on selecting tosais, I have chosen the top three fish for our discussion. Can I get some feedback on these three tosais? Please be as critical as possible because I am here to learn. They are about 4"-5" long at 7 months old. A little small for their age? How big should tosais at this age be if they were raised in a more ideal condition?
Here are some of the topics that I would like to be enlightened with these three tosais:
1. Shape/Conformation?
2. Beni quality?
3. Kiwa/sashi quality?
4. Shiroji quality?
5. Six-step(Roku-dan?) tosai - there is a pinkish spot on its forehead. About 10% of the spawn have this condition. It looks like undeveloped skull bone. What is that? Will that area solidify with age. If so, when?
6. Nidan tosai - Also has a patch of "bleeding" hi on its right side about the mid section near dorsal fin. Will that patch improve as it mutures.
7. There are some other babies with decent patterns, but they are only about half the size of these three. Will they catch up with their larger siblings later in life giving the same raising conditions? Or are they just genetically inferior and not worth keeping?
Thanks in advance!
Sunny