Whitening the yellowish skin

[monscine]

I bought these both Maruyama kohaku at last 01 July 2005. At first both have just clear white skin, but then when I continue keeping them in my pond, the shiro of koi B turn to be yellowish. I did fed them with spirulina food for about a month period to enhance the hi colour of koi A which was a bit thin, which I think happened cause she growed fast and the hi colour usually couldn't get its balance than the growth.

As you can see, the shiro of koi A is better than her sibling koi B. Any idea how to get back the yellowish shiro to be snow white again?

Thanks,

[dick benbow]

first off let me say, i like your koi and glad to have you posting ...here are some random thoughts to start the ball moving....

Since both of them are not discolored I'm thinking it's not a problem with your water or more koi would show the same symptoms....

Since in your part of the world, growth is hard and fast, the urge to feed color food is strong to keep them from outgrowing their color. You might want to discontinue that in the future.especially anything with spirulina, shrimp meal is acceptable...

koi are individuals even among brothers and sisters. For health reasons (usually the liver) a koi may not be functioning properly which could affect it's yellow skin. It could get worse it could get better

My advice would be to monitor the koi and give it time to return to it's whiteness.
there are some japanese koi products that claim to help strengthen internal organs you might want to look into.

I hope my comments will prompt some other ideas... best of luck

[PapaBear]

Quote: Originally Posted by dick benbow first off let me say, i like your koi and glad to have you posting ...here are some random thoughts to start the ball moving.... Since both of them are not discolored I'm thinking it's not a problem with your water or more koi would show the same symptoms.... Since in your part of the world, growth is hard and fast, the urge to feed color food is strong to keep them from outgrowing their color. You might want to discontinue that in the future.especially anything with spirulina, shrimp meal is acceptable... koi are individuals even among brothers and sisters. For health reasons (usually the liver) a koi may not be functioning properly which could affect it's yellow skin. It could get worse it could get better My advice would be to monitor the koi and give it time to return to it's whiteness. there are some japanese koi products that claim to help strengthen internal organs you might want to look into. I hope my comments will prompt some other ideas... best of luck

If I remember correctly the Saki Hikari line of feeds promotes itself in the way you mention (Hikari Germ). I've never used it personally so I can't attest to the claim.

[Brady Brandwood]

Hi monscine,

Your Koi (B) shows characteristics of being a male Koi, and males can show yellowing of the skin in periods of the season when breeding "is on their mind". Your Kohaku (A) is showing characteristics of being female, BUT her skin is also showing some yellowing. I think you will see improvements if you up your filtration, adding a trickle type filter will help the whites of your Koi tremendously by adding oxygen to the water, and by lowering nitrites & nitrates, and eliminating any residual ammonia. Also, keeping male Koi separate from female Koi will help the development of males,... it's hard to do anything with women on your mind.

As Dick mentioned also, I would suggest staying away from color enhancing foods in a closed system.

Summary - improved water quality and improved diet, and segregation will give you the results you are looking for with the whites.

Best Wishes,
Brady Brandwood

[monscine]

Hi Dick,

Thank-you for appreciating my kois. This might be something what I miss. Internal organ problem. I still analyze the problem why some of my kois also did turn to be yellowish. Some other koi lovers suggest me to keep them on a tight diet to bring back the shiro to come up again. The others suggest to use a chiller to low down water temperature as its nature on Niigata area. I change the koi food to only wheatgerm that is said could bring back the shiro too.

What's that Japanese products that could help me out of these symptom?

Thanks,

[monscine]

Quote: Originally Posted by PapaBear If I remember correctly the Saki Hikari line of feeds promotes itself in the way you mention (Hikari Germ). I've never used it personally so I can't attest to the claim.

Hi PapaBear,

I did fed them with colour enhancing food with a Japanese brand. The food indeed help the hi up and fulfill the scale. But I didn't count the side effect of the food since I use automatic feeder machine to feed the kois. I mixed the colour enhancer food with the wheatgerm type food and then pour it to the machine and set 8 feeding times per day.

Probably the colour enhancer food could cause the yellowish shiro, but I just confuse that her sibling doesn't get affected at all.

[monscine]

Hi Brady,

This is a new knowledge to me that the males could have yellowish shiro when they are in the mood to breed . I mix both males and females on one pond and I think you are right to have them at separated pond. Last week I found 5 fries near the pond skimmer. They must be the ones that survive from their uncle and aunty mouth . But then how can a male live without a female??

I'm in experiment to use drip water system in order to exchange the existing water. And I would try what have you said to lower the nitrites & nitrates.

Btw, I wonder how you can sex the kois by just taking a look to the pics? Any clue about that?

Thanks,

[soelistyo]

Hi Monscine

my 2 cents.

i've also heard a few times that male fish may have bigger chance of yellowing rather than female, although i'm sure there are cases of exception.

as for having a chiller, personally i have no doubt that will improve the shiroji of the fish, i've seen first hand of this happening within a matter of 2 weeks at a dealer's pond. were the koi housed in a chilled pond when you bought them?

naturally, feeding spirulina will also stain the shiroji of certain koi but that effect should reverse when you stop feeding spirulina and revert to wheat germ. i think this especially affects shiro utsuris (my feeling).

having explored outside factors that may or may not help, i think at the end of the day the quality of shiroji depends on the koi's inherent quality itself. if the fish is simply one with a poor shiroji, nobody can make it otherwise.

good luck.

[monscine]

Hi Soelis,

Both kois has been kept on a pond with chiller installed. But I found the shiro of Koi A is just fine and I don't use chiller on my pond ... yet . I think the yellowish might because the spirulina food and yes it did affect on my shiro utsuri too.

Nowadays I feed them with Sakai wheatgerm mix with Manda Nishiki.

Btw, you are the one that keep a 1m soragoi, aren't you? How is she now?

Cheers,

[aquitori]

Maybe you can move the Kohaku into someone's mud pond for a season. You can't really fix the shiroji but there are ways of helping it along to getting white...You can dust the koi pellets with refresh and feed to your Kohaku....