Cloud Nine

[Mike T]

KFG:

Go for it....however think about three things...first go to Maurice's website to see what it took for him to start his breeding business this past year....great pics of his farm from vacant field to 15 ponds with cover... http://www.koi-uk.co.uk/index.htm

2. and Most important.... Let's say you do this on a hand shake, all your koi are on the property, you've invested your funds... And God forbid, Ronnie gets into an accident and croaks...Where does this leave you, does he have creditors with liens on the property, what about heirs? Are you going to self insure each other?

Sounds like you need a good business lawyer....One of my best friends and I wanted to start a business together, we went to a lawyer, you'd be amazed at the pitfalls we could have run into had one of us become incapacitated or died...We decided to remain friends and not business partners....

3. Think about what B.Scott said re: culling...do you realize that most son's of Japanese breeders apprentice to other breeders even though they grew up in the business from birth?

Nothing wrong with going forth with this venture, just make sure you have all the bases covered and try to look at the situation with your emotions parked at the curb...

Been there, did it! Aloha! Mike

[MikeM]

Very good, MikeT. One of the finest things is to truly be friends and business partners. It is a rarity. About all that can be expected is to be friendly and partners. You probably saved a friendship. Much too often I see folks confuse friendliness with friendship. This is often likely when drawn together by a common interest (like koi or even golf). The friendliness of playing a game together gets confused with friendship, and then when it comes to sharing responsibilities for a business, suddenly it is realized that one partner actually does not like the other at all. Just liked golfing together.

Listening, KFG?

[bekko]

So KFG, how did it go with the guy on Saturday?

-steve

[koifishgirl]

Well I worked my butt of this past Saturday and sunk up to my thighs in mud, but I had fun. I forget to get the camera when I left so no pics. He had lowered a mud pond and we pull the pond of about 300 koi and he sold just about all of them.

Things did not work out as well as I had hoped as he called monday to tell me he had changed his mind as it scared him to go into this with someone else as he had some trouble in the past and it cost him quit a bit of money to get out of it. Needless to say I was heart broken and bumbed around all day with a gloomy look on my face but by nightfall I had a complete change. I have my place and will let nothing stop me so forward I go. I did learn how to give koi shots to get them spawning so not all was lost. Then I met a guy that is going to sell me some of his parent koi for 50 bucks a piece so I though after working my butt off in the end I did pretty good and did not have anything to be so down about.

My pond sizes have changed also after pulling a pond I wont go the route in building the ponds they way he did that is way to much work. I have decieded on 12 foot wide by 50 foot long by 4 foot deep six foot apart or maybe 12 foot apart so I can drive down the middle. All my pond will go shallow to deep if I have to drain all my koi will be in one end of pond. Just waiting on contractor to come and dig them. Then maybe I can get this thing going.
Oh yeah I could not move in the mud pond with the waiders on was not strong enough to pic my feet up after got in so I came out the darn things and went in sock feet and did great. One thing is for sure this is very hard work and I did not realize how tired I was untill I stopped. I was haveing so much fun getting the koi out at the time it did not seam like work at all.

Anyone ever heard of sweetwater blowers to put air in my mudponds?

[bekko]

I think that when it's all said and done, you will be glad you have your own operation.

If you need waders, get the neoprene ones from Cabela's. You will not pull out of them if they fit right. Another option is a wet suit which will keep you warm without the hassle keeping your chest above water - but you get wet.

Sweetwater blowers are a good way to go. Do not get the smallest model because it will not aerate very deep. The most energy efficient thing is a paddlewheel, but they do not make them small enough for your needs - or mine.

The only thing wrong with the pond design is that you will get less water surface per acre of land. That's OK as long as you have enough land.

-steve hopkins

[estanque_koi]

Quote: Originally Posted by bekko You can stock about 200,000 fry in a half-acre pond. -steve hopkins

Hi Steve,
what age/size have your fry when you transfer them to the mud pond?
Could you explain more or less how you gradually reduce through culling the above mentioned stocking density along the season? I mean, timing of culling events and culling rates (or no. of keepers left in the mud pond after each cull).
What is the approximate final density at harvest time?

Good luck, KFG. You have and enormous strength of will.

Diego

[MikeM]

KFG: Reading your adventures, sometimes I feel like Simon on American Idol. Other times, it is a "reality show". But whatever impression the moment brings, I look forward to the next installment. Go girl!

[ranskye]

kfg, if your not going to harvest from the outside of the pond,look at putting a harvest sump in the deep end. it makes things easier.

[bekko]

Diego,

All the ponds I use for koi are small and lined with plastic. They range in size from 3 to 75 mt. I have a few mud ponds, but they can go dry in the summer and aren't used for koi - only aquatic plants and fish which can be removed by trapping.

There are others here who could provide much better advice about culling. I have not settled into a routine, but here is my present thinking.

For gosanke, I start culling black fry as soon as they are born. My success ratio with black fry is so low that they are not worth the effort and space. If you are after old-style showa or utsuri, you would keep these.

The next cull is when they are "hard" fully scaled fish - about 2-3 cm. At this point, the higoi are removed, along with the flared gill and any other obvious deformities. Tobi are separated. This is not a complete cull. I just run a seine through the pond a couple of times and anything not culled is returned to the pond. There will still be some small fry. I might do this two or three times over a period of several weeks. The culls are stored in tanks or cages until sold as feeder fish for the oscar and arowana folks. Deformities are fed to the snapper (marine food fish) or the pigs.

The first serious cull is when most of the fish are 5-7 cm. Every fish is looked at and moved to another pond or storage tank. The rest of the solid red higoi and kohaku with hi in the fins or wrapping to the belly are removed, as are the larger shiromuji. If there is any indication of hi or sumi under the skin, they are saved or now. Anything that already looks good is put in a separate tosai pond to speed up their growth. The culls are stored in tanks or cages until being sold off as feeders or junk Wal-Mart koi. Deformities are fed to the pigs.

Depending on the density and the demand for junk koi, I will pull a seine through them again every 2-5 weeks. The junk is sold off, those that look good go to the tosai ponds, and if I'm not sure, they are released back to the pond to be looked at again later. When they start getting hard to catch with the seine, the pond is drained and every fish is moved to a tosai pond or junk koi storage tank/cage/pond. If I'm not certain, they are lumped into another grow-out pond to be looked at again.

By late summer or early fall, it is getting difficult to sell junk koi and I am thinking making aquarium fish (live-bearers and marine) for the winter market. To free up pond space, I will drain the grow-out ponds, move good fish to the tosai ponds, and restock the junk koi at high density to slow their growth and store them until early spring.

In the winter, when it's time to start thinking about starting the whole process over again, I drain the tosai pond(s) and pick through them. The few that are worth keeping another year are separated from the mass of mistakes which are sent to the garden centers at the first opportunity.

I do not spawn non-gosanke, but last year purchased fry from hariwake and kujaku spawns. I had no idea how to effectively cull these. I saved a lot of fish that should have been sold off early and probably sold some good ones for a few cents each. I need to stick with kohaku and sanke.

-steve hopkins

[bekko]

KFG, I should have mentioned that "Sweetwater" is a brand name for some stuff sold by Aquatic Ecosystems. AREA in Homestead, Florida is another popular supplier http://www.areainc.com . Mike Mukvahill at AREA used to design the complete aeration system for you and spec-out the equipment and supplies - don't know if he still does that or not.

There are several manufacturers of regenerative air blowers. Their advantage is that they provide a high volume of air at a low operating cost. However, the air pressure is very low. You need to use large-diameter distribution lines to reduce frictional losses and prevent heat build-up. You may want to look into using air lifts at the deep end of the ponds. With an air lift, you get good vertical mixing without having to force air down to the bottom of the pond.
You guys with deep concrete ponds and diffuser domes will not be interested in regenerative blowers.

A sump in the deep end does make things easier. However, it will fill up with muck and mud during the season and has to be cleaned out before the pond is drained. Harvesting outside the pond is always much cleaner. However, you would need to have a large drainage ditch running alongside the line of ponds, and would need a pipe through the dike with a riser inside the pond. A drain ditch and drain pipe means you do not have to pump the water out though. Look into the cost of the harvest pump before you dig the ponds. The gasoline-powered ones aren't cheap. For an electric pump large enough to drain the pond in a hurry, also determine the cost of the wiring.

If you put a wide berm between every other pond, you still have vehicle access on at least one side of each pond. Why the vehicle access on the long axis anyway? You might end up having to enclose everything under bird netting and the wide roadways will make it more expensive to cover. The most important place for vehicle access is at the deep end where the harvesting is done.

I know you won't do it, but you really should contact your local Soil Conservation Service agent before digging ponds. They can provide a lot of really good advice based on the topography, soil conditions, etc. They can also do the cut-and-fill calculations. You know, to get a 4-foot deep pond you will only be excavating less than 2 feet. The material removed in the excavation will be placed around the perimeter to give you the other two feet of depth. The wider the berms between ponds, the deeper you have to dig.

Use one foot of bottom slope - 3 feet in shallow end, 4 feet in deep end. If you do not install a sump, make a hole (maybe 4-8 feet square and five feet total depth) at the deep end. This is to keep the pump from sucking air when draining and provide a place to concentrate the last bit of fish. You will also want 6-12 inches of freeboard so the pond bank is not over-topped in a heavy rain. The side walls cannot be vertical or it will slough-in. The appropriate slope is determined by the soil characteristics. In sand, you use a 3:1 slope. In very tight clay, you can use a 1:1 slope.

-steve hopkins