| They're not fry, they are juveniles. They look good, but you cannot cull from a photo.
What to cull depends on how much space you have available. You need to decide how many you will carry into the winter and spring and cull down to that number. To do this, you may need to get them all out of the pond and into holding tanks or cages so you have some sense of the total number and how many you have to get rid of.
If you have more than one pond to put them back into for the winter, put the best fish at very low density in one pond and the lesser fish at higher density in the other pond. At this size, very low density would be one fish per 30 to 50 square feet. Without aeration, high density would be about one fish per 3 to 5 square feet. With aeration, you could put one fish per square foot. Despite the winter, you will see a big difference in growth at the high and low densities. Are your ponds 20' x 50' = 1000 square feet? That would be 20 to 30 select fish per pond, or 200 to 300 junk fish per pond without aeration, or 1000 junk fish per pond with aeration.
I get ridiculed if I mention selling junk koi. However, the worst of these would be good enough to go to Pet Smart in the spring - assuming there are no deformities. Some look like they could have potential and should be pampered and kept in hopes that they make it to a more lucrative market. The junk fish have to be moved out, one way or the other, in early spring to make room for next year's fry.
No one can tell you what to select for. I would get rid of the solid color, non-gin rin, fish first (higoi, kigoi and shiro muji). I would pamper and keep those that look like they may make a decent gosanke or shiro utsuri - at least until they prove that they will not make the grade. Everything else is somewhere in between.
-stevehopkins | 
10-06-2005
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