Spawning insight, advice needed.....

[Maurice]

Good post Steve.

Don't but too many sanke eggs in your basket.
The rewards are poor as a rule.

Maurice.

[dick benbow]

Good Advice Maurice....Of all of the varieties I've bred Sanke is the most difficult!

Been fun to read this thread...It's a topic that's been fun to be involved in.

[bekko]

Keep it up guys - please. The harder you make sanke sound, the more rewarding it will be when I finally make one decent fish. My first try with sanke, I only missed the one-decent-fish goal by about nine scales.

Geez, I've got to get a life.

-steve

[koiedge]

Sorry to leave ya'll hanging. Bad week, needed some time away from the computer. And I had to separate all the fish. I'll start at the end and work back.

Bekko - yea, no sanke this year. But I will be breeding some great Torazo showas. Late bloomers.

Kohaku- the cross reference chart is originally from "Manual to Nishikigoi" I believe. And there are a few more in the same book. They have been great reference. I keep looking at them for origin of that variety to back cross or to look for an alternative to a same X same cross. The one you have came from the japan-nishikigoi sight. Are you a member? I just found this sight the other day and thought that it might provide some good info - if they will let it out.

Bekko - yea, I tend to go BIG or not at all. With all the crosses this year it is a real shame for me to tell you what is paying for them - shubunkins. That is what someone is paying me to breed, then this pays for all the others. Yes, I am being very diverse in my pairings. Looking at the huge learning curve for all the varieties and their secrets. Yes, it is all a numbers game and training your eyes for those few numbers. Collecting 'blood' is what I call purchasing named breeder fish. You go for the blood line, even if the exact one you have is not perfect. Science of spawning, not a problem. I have a good background on that. The artist pairing and culling is the real void of experience. It is near impossible to get good acorate advise. And if you find a source, they don't want to tell.

Adreamer2 - yea, I have been spawning for about 4 years. The first working on a working American koi farm. Very different than what I would believe occurs in Japan. The last 3 years working at home on different spawing science tech. Last year was great, up to my grow out - that 'person' failed to supply needed space and most were lost. Pairing same to same would be great, but as was mentioned - some where - most of us don't collect many of one variety. I will start now, but money is an issue.

Elunned - thanks for the culling advice on the goromo/goshiki. Yea, shusui I am just throwing in late as another pair. I will give your advice a try on those too. I hope to post as much as I can as the spawing and culling occur. Makes sense what you have said, splitting up as much for maxium growout space for the young. I am going to try my best to give all the young optimum growing space AND cull like there is no tomorrow. That is a HUGE reason I am dying for the best culling info possible. I am going to cull hard.

RayJordan - Yea, agree on the pairing to keep the same lineage if possible in the pairing, if not same same. That is one reason I am trying to reseach so much on crosses and historical lineage. The charts are great! Huge help, but they leave ALOT of holes that you can try and guess, but not always.

Ok, all that out of the way. THANKS for all the great advice, I will be making myself flash cards to pull as I cull!

Update, the beautiful budo goromo female passed away during all my separating this weekend. She was the only fish that had any problems and I can only trace it back to the fact that the tanks were not all exactly the same temp. We have been having a weird cold front come thru and it was making keeping the tanks the same temp hell. I will be kicking myself for weeks, but the harder the lesson the longer you retain it. All males/females are separated, photographed and measured. Over 60 fish were sorted! 4" to 28", what a job. And I send a big thanks out to Kim, from our local club who helped and played secretary to write all the stat's down for me.

Any thoughts on the Beni Kumonryu?

That's all for now, off to work on my flash cards. What great advice, glad I asked all you seasoned nishikigoi explorers!

Jeff

[koiedge]

OK, something has come up. I am going to try and spawn some 'ghost' koi. Now all I have to do is find some leather/mirror/common carp here in the US large enough!

Jeff

[mrbradleybradley]

So.....

Whats the goal in spawning ghost koi??

BB

[mitten]

Hey guys- I'd like to know what ghost koi are? Kin kabuto, nezu ogon, bad gin matsuba? It bothers me when I read about them but have never really heard what they are or seen a picture identified as ghost koi. You can see from my descriptions what I think they may be.

Jeff, you want to use a carp to produce them and any of these three scalings will do? Is my brain fooling me again by remembering that wagoi x wagoi= 25% doitsu, wagoi x doitsu = 50% doitsu, and doitsu x doitsu = 50% doitsu and 25% mortality? Are you trying to make doitsu koi? Ghost koi are doitsu??

Let me presume that the point of ghost koi is salability...you can off them easily to the pond trade in exchange for the funds needed to do something creative like pay bills or breed sanke. I haven't heard of ghost koi being entered at shows. Have I missed it? I know, I know, kawari.

Mickey the windowman

[Kohaku]

Breed Kin Kabutos!

[adreamer2]

http://members.lycos.nl/woutervansark/photoalbum3.html

http://images.search.yahoo.com/searc...t=352&ei=UTF-8

Well... anyhoo....... Here is a third site to consider.....

http://www.carpfishing.8k.com/ghost_koi_carp.htm

I had 1 ghost koi last year, but it died with the rest of my pond.... This year, I bought 4 baby ghost koi..... The seller told me that they were "dragon scale" koi.... But, they look exactly like the ghost koi I had.....

Adreamer2

[koiedge]

Mitten - basically if I understand what I have read about ghost koi. It is the cross of any metallic koi and any 'wild' carp. It produces a randomness to the fry that you really never know what will be thrown.

Side note: I am sorry about the ghost koi comment. I threw it out there to stir the pot, but thanks for the comments. If I find the space and 'wild' carp specimens I will be sure to post the results of any spawning.

Yes, my true main goal is to produce very high quality show koi by using my artistic eye and understand the culling process deeply - closer to the true Japanese way of spawning and culling. Trying to ultimately raise the bar for the entire US koi breeding industry. Just a thought. But the way I am thinking.

Jeff