Question on asagi water conditions?

[tcheung]

I've heard that asagi require different water conditions than that of gosanke. If so, what are these conditions? What other variety of koi require different water conditions or are they mostly similar? Any answer or comment would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[PapaBear]

Hopefully Mr. Benbow will chime in on this one as he is our most humble but highly esteemed resident expert on Asagi . It is my understanding that Asagi and Shusui develop and maintain their coloration better in Lower Ph (7.0-7.5 range) water with lower Gh (<200) water.

[dick benbow]

Asagi's can get dark or splattered with black spots in hard water than favors the big three in finishing water. GH for gosanke would be in the 200 range while asagi's would do better at half that.

other beautiful color varieties that also do better in less hard water include
hariwake, midori, kikusui, shusui.

keeping water is all about keeping koi. Consistantcy in water parameters is big....better to keep koi color varieties that favor your water. If that is simply unacceptable then look into Reverse osmosis water.
Mike Snaeden at Yume Koi has an article detailing it well on his web site and it would be worth your time to study it.

Where asagi's are concerned most get into color problems because their keepers continue to cycle the same water thru their systems day after day without a 10% 24/7 water change.

for Gosanke koi kichi's keep in mind that water to grow YOUR favorite color variety is different from that which is used to finish it.

[Tamianth]

I guess I have a couple of Q's here as well! I have technically speaking, Asagi water, 7.6 gh and kh both run 53.7 but I can change my water as much as I like and as often as I like thankfully and generally keep a good 25%-50% change out weekly. You mention the softer water params are not neccassarily good for gosankes, can you elaborate for me a bit there Dick? I'm just trying to understand how different colors may be effected by the difference.

[dick benbow]

I think we all thought mud ponds in japan were used because of all the minerals in clay to bring out the color. The truth of the matter is about all you can raise in them is rice or koi because it doesn't have much. But this is great water for growing koi. When it comes to finishing them, that's when the
harder GH comes in handy. What we as Americans ( who are way behind as a group from the Taiwanese and Britts ) need to learn is when to grow and how to learn when the timing is right to finish the koi. Two different waters, two different purposes.

[KoiCop]

Dick is spot on (as usual).

Art Lembke (koidoc) had a fine thread on KS recently entitled Soft and Hard Water Koi Finishing which explains this in greater detail:

http://www.koishack.com/forum/index....ic,3852.0.html

[Tamianth]

Thank you both!

That was a good read Don!

[KoiCop]

yeah, I printed it out for my "Going To The Show file."

[tcheung]

Thanks to everyone who commented! Learned a lot once again. But one more question, sorry :P. what exactly is GH? I've heard of pH but not of gH.

[johnsmith]

I'm going to disagree here. High class show fish should ONLY be kept in soft, neutral - to -slightly alkaline water. The idea of putting koi in harder water to 'finish' them is based in the finishing of tateshita for market.
Good koi will finish on their own and NO ONE should rush a tategoi to be finished!!
In fact, tategoi have the gift of 'arrested development' and that is a very very good thing. It is madness to cancel out that God given gift. All the progress of a tategoi is realized in the mud pond ( a soft water/neutral environment) and not in the pass through water in the winter holding facility.
To make a bigger point here- every koi has it moment of perfection. Some fish naturally finish at age one or two and others, the rare ones, come on and on for years and then peak at age 5 or 6 or even 7 or 8. At that time, all colors and pattern come together with the finally matured skin at a massive size. That is the ultimate tategoi.

I just came back from a koi show were I saw a friend's asagi. We bought three asagi that year from the same breeder ( sisters) while shopping in Japan. I bought two and he bought one. They were carbon copies of one another at the time. His has transformed to a typical shade but has some very attractive fukurin- but this fish is now definitely dark. My two are two different shades of blue. One is exceptionally clean light blue and the other is less blue and more gray, but not dark. My friend's water is hard and mine is soft. My pH is 7.2 and softness is 65-70. I believe his is 160-180? One of mine, the gray one is very large ( now largest of the three we originally bought at around 68-70 cm ) and the other is exactly the same size as his ( 64 ish cm).

JR