About Kujaku

[doitsulover]

Further down it was said that one can not get kujaku from spawning 2 kujaku. Which fish produce a kujaku? I am assuming one has to be a kohaku?


Thank you!

DL

[dick benbow]

Hey DL

In sports terms those initials mean on the disabled list! Like I was during our recent show.

I didn't breed my kujaku female this year. But when I do it will be to a kujaku male. Going back to the source is like starting over. By the time a line is bred 10X's it's breeding is pretty pure. I have noticed this trend in thinking over the years on the various boards. the majority of breeders breed true to true. one exception is beni kumonryu.

You probably know how douitsu got it's name, since your a lover of them but for others it came about this way. When the Jpanese koi farmers became away of the mirror scaled german carp and were interested in breeding them into their scaled versions, they asked their german hosts the name of the carp. Naturally they said german in their own tonque "deutch". This was bravely attempted to be pronounced at "douitsu" by the japanese and now it's stuck. So the world replicates
the mispronunciation as proper. Kinda funny really.

BUT...no matter what you call em', a good douitsu is a thing of beauty. Ever seen a great douitsu kujacku, DL ?

[doitsulover]

I have been asked about my name all my life since my parents decided to name me 2 initials. Every one asks what it stands for. And some still don't understand it does not stand for anything. And most of my friends just call me "D".


I saw in a thread where I asked about Goshiki and some one had said spawns between kujaku don't usually produce kujaku so it just got me to thinking what one would breed to get a kujaku.





DL

[MikeM]

Doitsulover: Guess we got so focused on Goshiki that your question about Kujacku was overlooked. And, I have to apologize for causing you to think that crossing two Kujacku will not produce Kujacku. From what I have read, there would be Kujacku among the fry of such a cross. There would also be far more koi of all sorts. Many koikeepers assume that if two fish of a particular variety are bred, that the offspring will be entirely or predominantly of that variety. That is seldom the case. Even with a genetically refined variety, like Kohaku, many of the offspring will be solid colored in red or white.

It is interesting that you ask about both Kujacku and Goshiki, because I do not think of them as having anything in common, except some Asagi blood in the background. However, a year or so ago I obtained a copy of Masayuki Amano's book "Live Jewels: General Survey of Fancy Carp", which was published in 1968 (English version) and was surprised to see Kujacku referenced as a metallic Goshiki. I think of Kujacku as "Matsuba Hariwake", but if a person considers a Goshiki as having a white ground as Bern suggests, then Amano's allusion to metallic Goshiki starts to make sense.

As for the origin of Kujacku, Dr. Kuroki in Modern Nishikigoi writes that the variety was created by Toshio Hirasawa in 1960 by breeding a female Shusui that had a metallic back with a male Matsuba Ogon and a male Hariwake. Dr. Kuroki summarized the variety as follows:
"In short, Kujaku Ogon are the Hikarimono of fully-scaled Mame-shibori Goshiki."

This description of the origin of Kujacku is confusing to me, because Dr. Kuroki elsewhere in his book states that the Matsuba Ogon was first produced in 1960 by Eizaburo Mano. Obviously, if it was first created in 1960 by Mano, it could not have been one of the male parents used by Hirasawa in 1960. Ogon are known to grow quickly, but that is a bit too precocious I think.

Dr. Kuroki seems to have considered Kujacku as necessarily being metallic red or orange on silver, because he separately describes "Yamabuki Hariwake Matsuba" as a different variety within Hariwake, while Kujacku is described separately from Hariwake. I think of them as color variants of the same fish, but apparently Dr. Kuroki had a different appreciation of them.

Matsuba-goi originated in the deep past of koi, apparently through crosses of Asagi with benigoi, kigoi and shiromuji. So, the Matsuba Ogon was a metallic version. Lots of Asagi genes in the equation to produce Kujacku.