Ki 'Showa' Development one year on

[mrbradleybradley]

This koi is from a showa spawning. Last year I posted this koi I bred in expectation that the ki would eventually fade to white. Others suggested, that at best the ki would become orange and that alot of showa start off with yellow-like hi. Other showa in the same spawn started of with a deep burnt-bronze-like hi. Those have now developed orange/red hi. This koi has been the exception. It is now approaching 18 months old and 25cm. The picture tells the story. I still anticipate the ki will become over-run by the shiro. What has impressed me the most is how long the ki has held on. As there are NO ki-utsuri that I am aware of in Oz, I will breed this fella in a few years and see if ki can be developed further.

BB

[KoiCop]

Bradley . . .

I do hereby officially confer membership upon you in Mickey (Mitten's) Showa Are For Dreamers Club.

Good Luck and keep us posted.

[gregbickal]

Just my opinion, but YUCK. I know its Ki, but it looks like a koi that has fungus growing on it. Double-yuck. Sorry, but I would cull this one...

[paladin_k2]

I find the topic of emerging Ki Showa very interesting because you just do not see these fish anywhere. When you do see them it is rare to see intense rich yellow markings.

What where the parents of the fish that you show in your pics. I think that by now (at 18 mos age) you should see some real yellow color if it were to be in the cards at all. I think that the yellow markings are just far too pale to indicate any great promise for the future.

Here is a picture of a Ki Showa that I am watching to see how things go this year. This fish was hatched last May and was 8 inches long when the photo was taken in March at just under 10 mos of age. My apologies for not having a better photo but this fish had way too much energy to be a good photo participant that day.

The fish is a Ginrin Ki Showa from a Ginrin Showa x Ki Utsuri pairing. It has excellent motogoru placement on white pectorals but its weakness is too much Ki limiting the Shiro placement and quantity for balance. Sumi quantity and placement is crisp and almost perfect at this point.

I think that you should be expecting more Ki color intensity on your fish that should be at least 50% better and heading towards this fish I have pictured.

[KoiCop]

Australia bans importation of koi -- that's why there are no ki showa in Oz.

Some varieties there have to be reinvented from scratch, using existing stock, so one can't be too pickey about a starting point.

Cut him some slack, guys. He's got a long, hard road ahead of him.

[paladin_k2]

I am cutting him some slack Koicop-san because in some ways I have been down a similar road just for experimentation sakes.

That's why I asked what parents were used to produce that fish. This info could help us better understand why the fish has such pale color and such mottled skin. In the past I have crossed a Yamabuki male X a female Hi Showa in the attempt to "reinvent" yellow color in new places. The results were highly variable and could be described as fodder for frequent trips to the optometrist's office since I spent gazillions of hours squinting and peering over the fry in attempts to select someting of value.

Amazingly about 40% of the fry from that pairing were some sort of Yamabuki or Orenji ogon with high degrees of variation in fin color. I ended up deselcting about 80% of those for random errent sumi placement in the form of Shimmies that held not apparent promise of future sumi pattern placement. Didn't want to promote more of the freckledgoi we see out of so many breeding efforts.

I produced very few Ki Utsuri or Ki Showa type fish but in all cases the color was significantly more intense than the color shown by Bradley's fish. At about 6 to 9 mos of age the emerging color quality was very apparent and could tell me if the fish was worth keeping to move on to the next stage. It was a one shot outcrossing attempt but all the color results where better so that tells me to be honest with Bradley and say that he should be expecting significantly better color results if the correct parents had been chosen.

All outcrossing type pairings are lots of work and required massive extra effort to preserve diverse offspring and then select at a later stage of development when you can more visually determine if there may be value in the 10% or 5% of fish that your retain for the next stage of develpment.

[PapaBear]

You guys down there in Oz do have an interesting conundrum. On the one hand the importation ban means you have to re-invent the wheel to see the Koi you want. On the other hand, you GET to re-invent the wheel... Nice to see you making the very best of your circumstance.

Knowing the type of parent stock could help pin down the nature of the Ki. If it comes from a parent with the slow developing Ki that maintains a softness into maturity it would make it very unique and possibly beautiful in years to come. That characteristic is unfortunately rare in the Ki Utsuri I've been exposed to. The few Ki Utsuri/Bekko we have are rather on the hard, brassy side, but they're just pond mutts anyway.
I hope yours hangs on a while longer. If the Ki does develop the pattern looks like it could be interesting.

[JasPR]

I think, since there is no such thing as a ki showa that you don't spend too much time trying to make weak colors strong. The genetics is either there or it isn't- and as you know there is world of difference between phenotype expression and core genetics.

A ki utsuri is a black fish. And the 'ki' part is a pattern on top of the black base. This gets kinda tricky when you see a ki or hi utsuri with mostly pattern as it looks like a yellow fish with black markings. So you have two problems, the denseness of the sumi body and the thickness of the pattern. In most cases, the ki pattern is dull and weak and thin and as a result the black pokes thru like pinholes in a fabric.
The very best ki utsuri and therefore the road map towards making a ki showa ( if that is even possible) will likely be with strong black base topped with the right kind of ki. What is the 'right kind' of ki? I think that a pastel yellow will keep the sumi under control. Pastel ( lutino) is rare but it is really a partial albino. Ki goi is the perfect source for that albino linked pastel yellow. The reason it is so hard to get pastel or lutino yellow together with black is that you need double recessive genes. So only a very few fish can be expected per spawn. Maybe the answer lies with an shiro utsuri X kigoi cross? Or at least as a first step. JR

[mrbradleybradley]

Hi Guys

The intensity of the yellow is poor. I expected it to disappear much sooner. You can see it has lost some of its intensity. I do not expect it will keep the ki. I agree that this is an ugly looking fish. No doubt. But it is kept only for the ki. Good or bad, it is the only yellow in a non-metallic fish that I am aware of. I have only ever seen ki in shusui before this one. The parents of this fish are both showa. So this was a one off throwback, rather than an intentional result. I do not have a photo of the female as she is now pased. I have attached the male used. All other siblings have deeping stable hi.

JR, I would follow your suggestion about using a ki-goi. But we dont have any other these either. I just do not have ki-anything to choose from except for paladin's metallic suggestion.

BB

[MikeM]

Problem with Kigoi, JR, is they throw so much orange. Brady was trying to re-make Ki Utsuri. He lost the group and last I heard a year or so ago he was going to try again, but needed to find the proper oyagoi. He would not say what he was using. (Trade secret!) I suggested using Shiro Utsuri and some of his least metallic Yamabuki culls. He nixed that idea.

I've only seen one Ki Showa of worth and that was in a photo. If the photo could be believed, it was a true chrysanthemum yellow on white with fairly decent "country sumi". Body conformation was, well, let's say "imperfect". Still, the color and pattern combination was wonderful. Definitely a variety worth creating, if only the effort and space required was not so great.