Asagi Breeding 2004

[James P]

Thanks, That's interesting. I had always been taught that only the original Konjo had Indigo blue full scales from the magoi? And that konjo was divided into 'tetskon' ( Iron blue) and 'nasukon' ( purple blue) and the modern 'konjo' which is pure dark blue with a black border or edge.
In konjo the scales lose the white and become black to gray as you get up towards the head. The Old timer Japanese spoke of the black tip on konjo asagi as being the ornamental boarder- Are we talking about the same thing?
JR

[dick benbow]

Not too long ago ford bought out the jauquar (sp?) motor car. they built it
on a ford taurus frame. A lot of former owners don't call it the same thing
as ford does now. the same thing was true with the mini-cooper. The most
popular sticker these days on the real mini's is !00% free of BMW parts!
The
main distributor of this product in the USA also calls it reverse. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with this board and feel you may call it what you will.
I refer to the koi now as "dad"...(lol)

[Motown]

Oh Dick,

You found a game that I can play.

Saturn==>Opel==>Sabb
Crossfire==>Mercedes 500slk
Hummer H2 ==> Silverado 2500
Pontiac Vib ==> Toyota Matrix
PT Crusier ==>Neon
Cadillac CTS ==>Opel
Renault ==>Nissan
Chevy Equinox ==>Suzuki
Trailblazer ==> Isuzu...

Oh no...The Detriot Stormtroopers are here, I've said to much......

Help,

Motown

[dick benbow]

Thanks, "motown" I needed that! maybe it's marketing to come up with a "new' name or just another way to create interest in an existing product or maybe the creation of a new one.

The parents got moved back to thier respective "boy"- girl ponds to recover. Both parents fared well and there was auctually a little more eggs there than first thought.

[MikeM]

Great start, Dick!

Interesting observation regarding breeding unlike types of a variety to get a few super ones. Crossing "like with like" will give greater uniformity, but at the price of greater genetic in-breeding: higher deformities, lower immunity, etc. By crossing two separate strains of the same variety, recessive traits may be lost (which can be good or bad, depending on the breeding goal), but a sort of hybrid vigor can occur: larger, healthier fish. I expect you have gotten only a few "superlative ones", because most of the individuals no longer exhibited desired recessive traits. But, the two strains were close enough that some did keep desired recessive traits and of these there were a few that also exhibited the "hybrid vigor" effect. The perfect combination.

I know nothing about the genetics of the Asagi you are using, so this is going to be a wonderful adventure in all sorts of ways. Thanks for taking us along.

[James P]

Mike, Don't misread me, I'm rooting for Dick and this breeding all the way here!
But crossing two fish of the same variety but of different types does not produce hybrid vigor- more likely a greater regression to the mean. Koi varieties are an illusion held together by constant linebreeding and periodic, timely and appropriate out crossing, and most of all- rigorous culling.
It has been theorized by breeders and ZNA types that if 13 varieties were released into the wild, in four or five generations they would revert to gold,white, silver, black ,red and brown carp.
Just my two cents! And Dick- " go get 'em"

JR

[dick benbow]

Thank-you Mike for your encouragement! If there's one thing I've learned over the years is that there is theory and then there is application. some time theory gets it right, sometimes it doesn't.

Having the knowledge as Jim Does ( remember Jim was fascinated with asagi long before I was) and having the access to breeders and other japanese thru his ZNA connections, gives him alot of back ground info.

But the bottom line is if i get some good young from this pairing then i have something to work with. The female's red is too much for my taste.
the male is alittle less than what I think is correct. I'm hopeful I will produce some females with less red that I can work with.

what I learned from my shiros that I won with in a local show over japanese fish is mom has too much black, and dad not enough. a small percentage of thier spawn come out with a 60/40 mix of white to black.
I'm hopefull, this will prove thru with the amount of red with the asagis.
the trouble with this variety is that it will take me THREE YEARS to find out what my best ones scalation will be. narumi or reverse or maybe something else from the background heredity. ( gee I should have started on this as a young man! (lol)
So as everything with koi keeeping it's a journey
and I'm going to enjoy the ups and downs as I work with the kind of koi I love.
I have sanke and kohaku to breed this year again. to me I think sanke are the most difficult to get the black right. I have a new female this year.
she has one piece of red on her and two pieces of black ands the white is
stunning. I get tickled when people look at the kohakus. both the male and female are 3 steps and the comments always something to the effect that i'm trying to spawn for just 3 steps! one year I used a tancho kohaku male and got the same comments for tanchos. But from what theory and practicle appilication has taught me is you get a mix of koi from tancho to all the steps with this effort. I have heard ( unsubstantiated) that there is a breeder in hamamatsue who gets a predominance of tanchos from his spawns in sanke and kohaku and he has learned something to make it happen.
watching asagi's grow would be like to watching the grass do it's thing.
I may have to slip in a few others to keep you all from getting bored!

[dick benbow]

Was just talking to SMG and she mentioned something I wanted to share that I hadn't thought of. All my baby asagi's are born on a blueberry farm. the first asagi i ever got many moons ago was named blueberry by my son. kinda weird heh?

[MikeM]

JR: Don't really disagree. That's why I said a "sort of" hybrid vigor. The color/skin aspects would seem to be risking reversion. The size/growth/hardiness aspects are what I was thinking about.

A few years ago, I helped my daughter do a crossing of guppies for a science project. Crossed a purple veiltail with a gold-bodied red delta from an award winning line. The brilliant red was lost in the first generation. Also, no purple. There were a few throwbacks to "common guppy" roots, but otherwise the fry grew quickly to become uniformly olive-bodied with dull, muddy red tails with nothing to be said for them, except: the tails were among the best shaped veils I've ever seen (combining the best attributes of the parent lines), grew larger than either parent strain, had excellent bone structure, hardy & adaptable to water conditions. They were the best looking valueless junk I've ever grown. Asagi genetics are a mystery to me. Hopefully among the junk that any koi cross is going to produce there will be a few that take the best of both parents without losing the blue that makes Asagi so interesting. Glad I'm not the one with the responsibility to cull!!

Dick: If the male went into soft water with neutral pH, would the head lighten? How long? Has he done this color change before? Someday I'd like to try Asagi, but our hard, alkaline water deters me.

[shiromujigirl]

I imagine Dick will be out there at the farm next week picking those blueberries.