first spawning this season in oz.

[ranskye]

yes kingkong, thought provoking for sure and i guess you could look at this from any angle. my thought only come from what i know.
im sure if i had koi "plaguing" my river id be a tad peed about it.

the problem fish in the big rivers are brown europeans i think.
let there by people that didnt know it was not such a great idea.
you cant educate everyione that letting non indigenous fish out into the wild has repurcusions for the environment.

if there were any coloured japnanese style koi in those systems to begin with i imagine only the brownish ones would survive the predators.
they have carp round ups and also ive heard its aginst the law to catch a carp and let it go back in.

its just my thoughts that by allowing top line koi into the country as broodstock then it would not affect the rivers anymore than the koi that are already produced on farms here. you simply cannot have koi in the country with no risk.
but koi are here and here to stay, they are produced in large numbers legally.
new top line japanese lineage fish wouldnt really increase the risk.

what i think is that when you have a law that stops the top line being imported for our breeding pool then you have a situation where people, great koi lovers, will break the law and import fish illegally to have that genetic and this results in fish that could possibly contain the KH virus being brought into the country instead of having a fish that has been health checked appropriatley.
im pretty sure that the virus has actually recently entered the country via this pathway so i believe that the rule has had a negative effect in this regard. everyone would like some nice fish like the ones we see on the internet right?


i think the rule against importation was originally concieved to avoid koi running wild in the rivers but when you have an industy that produces koi here anyway its up to people to be responsible with koi so they dont get out.
to say the rivers are well protected becasue of the non importation of koi laws is probably a false belief today seeing as there are probably around ten million koi living in ponds farms and tanks in this county already legally.

i just cant see any harm being done by allowing a few disease free batches of top koi lines inot the country for breeding purposes.
i think it would be a postive only.
im not sure but it may even be possible to seek permission to do such a thing.

[mrbradleybradley]

"im pretty sure that the virus has actually recently entered the country via this pathway"

Is this a rumour? I have not heard anything.

Australian Koi Forum
www.koi.allday.at

[ranskye]

bradley, yes maybe it is a rumour, though ive heard the virus has been found in some peoples koi and i believe it. i dont believe the virus has entered any farms here and its best to try keep it that way.
i have been warned that it is in the country and to exercise care when sourcing new broodstock for the farm. i guess it is not well known as it is not widespread but likley already has been isolated.
i was told that the virus had likely come in with illegally imported fish and i guess this would be the most obvious pathway as it is likely that some importation has occured since the outbreaks overseas.
i cant say im an expert on the virus itself but to say that no koi have been imported since the 1970s ban would be an untruth. laws only try and prevent things happening but it dosent always work.
i feel its just better to be on the side of caution.

do you know if the virus can be passed on via milt alone?
until i know more info it may be a way of getting some better genetic into the farm without risking the virus and without costing a packet for the fish to be tested for it.

[mrbradleybradley]

Hey

I suspect it is a rumour rather than fact. I dont know of anyone who would know how or where to test for KHV in Australia.

[ranskye]

yes maybe your right/..

[bekko]

When SVC was decimating carp populations in the Santee-Cooper River System in South Carolina, the response from the fishing public was like.... "Oh, well that's nice."


-steve h

[mekoi]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrbradleybradley Hey I suspect it is a rumour rather than fact. I dont know of anyone who would know how or where to test for KHV in Australia.

Hi BB,

It could a rumour, I hope. But from what I've heard a few pets store are selling smuggled koi into the country from Japan. Now I'm not saying they have KHV but the point is that these koi were not quaratined at all and went straight to stores.

It real worry so just beware guys

rgds,
Jon

[ranskye]

hi steve, been a while..good to see your still here.

i could imagine just how happy they would be about a disease almost taking them out of the system. im surprised they havent let one of those diseases out into our systems yet as a control, or just sprayed the whole river with fish poison to see if that works.

jon, that surprises me a little that pet stores sell imported koi but if they are able to market it as from the japanes source then i definatley wouldnt put it past happening, it happens with a lot of other fish above the 300 dollar mark..
what lines of fish can we buy? have you got access to any kohaku with a better red than mine???lol.

i always thought it would be the full on koi enthusiasts going to the trouble to get the real thing but i guess if they can meet any demand through a store theyll give it a go.
yes its worrying, id almost feel safer if i knew the fish where in the hands of someone that knew of the risks and would kill them if the disease showed up.

i often see other types of fish in stores that arent supposed to be here.
it makes them rare and more of a prize so the money is there to cover it you can bet your house on it happening.

i did the second spawing today and i took some pics of a few fish i had available.
i must say its much harder to pair up after losing so many males in the death of the aerator.
after going through the females and placing them in spawingin cages at the end of the day i had to let them back go again.

some of the fish that i would have had to use i could just as easily swapped for a case of beer.

[ranskye]

a few more blue fish that i had on hand to use.
i lost my better shusui male and was barely lucky enough to find we still had two male asagi in our for sale cages but they arent much to look at.
so it turns out I lost two male asagi and 2 male shusui in that pond crash.

a cage of kohaku here too, notice how the red is near orange on some of the stock..
i chose the two best fish out of here and will post the pair pic soon.

and to think that i sold some of the better ones when i first started on the farm and didnt know the value of a half decent koi. they were in the for sale cage so i flogged them to a nice asian lady for 20 bucks each..
the customer said " 20 bucks?,"no worries, ill take them" and just kept pointing at those pretty red and white ones with a clear nose.


the picture of the empty cage is what we use to hold the fish while spawing.
we throw in some netting for the eggs to adhere to and then just remove the fish after theyve done the deed.
i could likely get better numbers of fry through per pair using tanks but this is the way the farms been doing it for years now.
though seeing as brood numbers are down we may have to change technique next time if the pond spawn doesnt produce a large enough quantity.

ive only used fairly small females this time round and tried for our nicer fish this time and last time. the roughest biggest bellied fish i just might have to breed halfway through february and that is at a time that i dont mind overstocking the pond over our winter to keep them all small.

we had a guy that had some nice fish and worked out a deal where he was going to bring them around so we could spawn them but then he advised us that most of his went of with the last decent rain.
our other spawn lender moved interstate to QLD and wasnt allowed to take his fish with him so he had to sell them all out.

[ranskye]

heres another pic of some blue fish and a pic of the pair of kohaky that i paired together.