last tosai "culled" today

[dick benbow]

Well no pics this time. Kigoi, Ochiba and Green Chagoi are not that photogenic!
kinda glad to have that work behind me! The Ochibas looked nice. We'll see how their patterns hold, bout the most transitory koi I know! When they first came out they didn't used to be that way!
caught a few nisai from the growth pond. Have a shallow bay to the main pond where we feed each day that can be closed with a net. Caught a really nice shiro with menware and an eye patch and a matsukawabake
that we moved inside. the kumonryu eluded me this time but eventually
we'll catch up with him/her. It's my best one and I'd like to see how it's doing before it gets too cold to feed!

This next month work on a new green house will commense so that i have twice the space next year to work with.

had a spectator show up and watch the process of sorting for about an hour. He fell in love with the baby asagi's so i had to send him home with two. Reminded me of myself 25 years ago when I bought two koi to raise in the winter time in an aquarium. By spring I was exchanging half the water in the 29 gallon tank EACH DAY and frantic to get the foot long sanke's into some kind of outside pond. It was all they could do to turn around inside the tank! (lol)

[Maurice]

I'm glad things have been going well for you and your breeding program Dick.
I've just posted some photos on Mark's board of a few hariwake I snapped yesterday while culling.
I don't think Brian will mind, I'll try and put a link. If it does not work, I'll put the photos up again, but it's a bundle of typing with all those photos.

http://www.madaboutkoi.com/cgi-bin/d...rum=DCForumID9

Maurice.

[dick benbow]

Maurice,
they look really nice! Now That I'm involved with the breeding end, I look at koi a lot differently than before as a hobbyist. The first think I looked for was body shape, then pec size. What they told me is that your parents genetics are strong and good and that you are not overcrowding your collection to the room available. Love the pattern on the one on the left. Question, this particular color variety likes a softer water to hang on to your yellow and not turn an orange. was curious as to your water specs
that they were raised in? Always thought water was hard in the UK?

[jacovors]

Hi Maurice,
Very well done. What parents did you use in this spawning?
Could a pairing of Kikusui and Kujaku work?
Jaco.

[MikeM]

Maurice: Like Dick, I am wondering about the yellow color. Can you tell which will become orangish, and which will be a bright chrysanthemum yellow? ... There is not much written on the behavior and development of yellow. Any insights would be interesting.

[Mike T]

Maurice:

"Oh! My Goodness" these were the first words out of my mouth when I opened your site and saw the Hariwake... :shock:

I wish you guys would quit posting these fantastic pictures... I'm in the midst of building our second pond, for koi that are already ordered, and can't afford to build anymore... :wink:

Thanks for the pics, and Dick, thanks for starting this tread...

Aloha! Mike

[Maurice]

Ok Dick, which one on the left did you like?
The water I am using at the moment to raise all the babies is very hard, Plans are afoot to change this along with removing all contaminants from my local stream water, more on that one at a later date.

Mike, I have little experience of breeding yellow koi, having only bred yamabuki prior to these hariwake. Yamabuki for sure, the best bet to end up with a large koi without red shimmies is to pick a pale colour tosai. The more intense the yellow when young, the greater the chance of spoiling when older.
I’ve only owned a few hariwake over the years, but have noticed the intensity of the yellow to fade over the years, but this is probably due to the decline in lustre more than the actual colour going. Time will tell how my babies develop as they get older, but their mother looks good at 5 years.

Jaco, these were bred from pure line of Hariwake, but they still produce kikusui and orange ogon, along with platinum and yamabuki.
Interesting you mention kujaku cross kikusui, because due to a slip-up, I only ended up with one male kujaku, so I popped in a male kikusui for my spawning. They were late spawned, last day of August so are small and unculled at present. But there seems all sorts amongst them. But then, seeing this is my first kujaku spawning, I have no idea how true they breed to start with! I’ll post pictures of the mix in a few weeks.

MikeT, thanks for your thoughts, you have no idea what these sort of comments mean.

Maurice.

[dick benbow]

Maurice,
I love the one on the left in the second grouping in. We broke ground this weekend for the greenhouse so the opportunity to have twice the water to carry tosai over next year has begun.

I think what you'll find on your kujacku mix is an occassional good koi
of what they are and lots of nice variety for the garden centers. As you and I know, they want lots of variety and color and buying good parents
is an expensive proposition.

[kiky]

Hi Maurice,

Nice pictures you have there. I'd love to put one of those in my pond, to see how it grows and finishes. Unfortunately, even if you put them on sale in spring, I simply don't know how to deliver it to my country.

[Mike T]

Maurice:

Your comment to Mike re: choosing a light Yamabuki is very interesting... I would venture to say that for those of us who do not understand the evolution of a Yamabuki's color, choosing a dark color Tosai would be the norm...

This is just what I did this past Feb... To date the 8" Yama has grown to 18+ inches... The color is still a rich 24 carat gold, but I've often wondered about orange or red showing up, as seen in other large Yamas, at the nisai or sansai stage... My hope is that knowing the breeder and parent stock, it will maintain it's true color... keeping my fingers crossed...

Once again, thanks for your posts... reading them is always a learning experience...

Aloha! Mike T