Fry Pics

[Swan]

Couple of weeks later.
I have culled some deformeties, but not sure what else to cull... prehaps the plain yellow ones or is there still a good chance they could develop the kohaku patten?
I'm keeping a keen eye on the black ones. Have a good New Year all!
Jim

[PapaBear]

At this size it is sooooooooo hard to have a keen enough eye to cull well (at least for me ). I can see some submerged pattern breaks beginning to show on some of the pinkish/pale orange fry. I'm not a pro so I would still have to settle for looking for imperfections in head shape and fins at this stage. Perhaps some of our experienced breeders can jump in here.

With the darker fry my desire to wait and see (coupled with my inability to net them all out of the pond) educated me a bit. I had several rather dull looking dark fry with yellow gold facial outlines that changed radically once they grew above 2-3". Ochiba patterns began to emerge from the belly upward, slowly displacing the darker scales.

One thing is certain. Shimbetsu is definitely an educational process!

[Swan]

It certainly is that! I suppose that's half the fun of it. I mean I'd love just to let all of them grow on and watch them tranform. It's just space will be becoming a problem in the next couple of months and I want to give them every chance to reach a decent size before the winter. Maybe when the time comes I will just have to save some of each colour, and take note of them as they grow. Cheers!

[PapaBear]

http://www.akakoi.com/
You might be able to contact someone in your own backyard who can give you some "hands on" pointers! Just a thought.

[Swan]

Good one, ty Papa Bear

[Swan]

I thought I'd post a couple of pics of the parents of these fry for those who are interested.

The Mother 37cm Modern Showa

The Father 33cm Kohaku

[Swan]

Just thought I'd update my fry's progress for those interested.
Hi patterns are darkening slowly but surely. Will be sorting them in to
two seperate ponds shortly, as space will be becoming a problem in the next
few weeks.
Comments/advice welcome, cheers.

[PapaBear]

Looks like an interesting mix of the Gosanke trio now. A few questions for you.
How many have you culled thus far, how many do you have left, and what is your target number after the next cull? Will you be sorting into a Kohak pool and a Sanke/Showa pool? It's hard to tell much about the Kohaks from these pix, but there are a few Showa that look interesting

[Swan]

I've only culled about 10-15 deformeties. There is only one other that I've been trying to get out. I'm quite pleased with the small number of deformed this time round as the last couple of years with the Matsuba breedings there were heaps more. Last year it would have been about 20% that were deformed.
I think there are about three hundred fry left in there. Yer I'm gonna sort into Kohaku and Showa-Sanke, as they seem to be about 50-50. That would leave approx 150 fry in each. The ponds are both about 1500 litres. As far as the target number, Im not sure. Being my first spawning of this sort it's kind of an experiment as to see what turns out to be any good. Thats why Im taking heaps of pics. I do have another two ponds which I will put the best looking ones when they are big enough. I'm hoping in another month or two it will be clearer which ones have the stronger patterns.
Your right the Kohaku aren't coming up well in the pics. They look better than the pics suggest.
These are the Showas that Im thinking will be the best, but who knows?? The ones that are still mainly black might end up being the best!?
I think I will cull a lot of the plain yellow/orange ones when I move them. As they will most likely just be plain red or orange koi right?

[PapaBear]

Last year was my first spawn/culling exercise, and I kept an odd variety on purpose. I just wanted to see how they would develop in order to learn from both the good and the mediocre looking fry. I have about 3 dozen left, some of which have been pleasant surprizes while others disappoint. Perhaps some cifu's out there can chime in and give you better advice as I am on the front end of the learning curve too.
Right now I'm just enjoying letting some of them snatch shrimp out of my hands in our small indoor qtank (man they do love 'em)