percentage of kohaku from a spawn.

[dick benbow]

thanks for the photos. Still think your male kohaku might want to be changed to get a better percentage....the shusui look pretty nice, but red seems pretty strong to me at this age. Anything with red pecs and red barely showing at sides along the belly?

[ranskye]

yes , i was looking through at a cage today containing many of the fish from that crop and the orange fish are concerning me, ill sort something out about that for next seasons breeding and see if i can get a different outcome.
ive got some fish in a bag at the moment and will take some pics in a sec, so it seems the orange is too dark on the shusui, these fish are actually over six months old so im not sure if the fish could be expected to have more colour in the red by now or not.
whats interesting to me is that no scalation can be seen, so im thinking either the scales show up later on as in age or maybe size has some play on that too.
ill show these pics and see what you think on that. i think i have an asagi too for you to look at. from the last time i posted my asagi, i believ you said that my blue is very much stronger than what a japanese asagi is. atleast these fish seem to breed true.

[ranskye]

heres some pics. the asagi seems to have a bit of a case of bung head going on there.
the asagi may have a wonky tail. sorry bout the picture quality but it sure shows the problems with these fish. thanks for your comments dick. i think its atleast telling me what not to look for!!

[ranskye]

hey dick, im thinking ill go ahead with filling out this import request.
basically i have to apply to our parliament to add koi to the list of species that can be imported. there is a special application that you can do for pets or for commercial breeding reasons. they would never approve allowing import for the pond or aquarium market but may allow some new bloodlines in to a few farms.

it will be that i apply for purposes to bring new japanese genetics into the country.
koi have ben banned from the list since about 1979 i believe when they thought them a big threat top our rivers if they escaped. while they are still a threat to our rivers we are allowed to breed and sell for the aquarium and pond markets. they have educational programs to advise people to not let them go or to not have them in farm dams near the catchments that are currently unnafected. so this should no longer be a major issue for bringing in some broodstock.
i have checked up on the stats and no one to date has applied through this mechanism to bring in koi under special such consideration, so it has not been aproved nor denied.
it looks like as long as the risk of the import is very small that they have provisions to allow me to import some fish. they do not have a policy of having zero risk as this sort of policy would hinder bussiness here.
it is up to me to put forth my argument, detail what i want to do and indicate what threats it may pose and how we wopuld adress that.
all seems ok except that KHV would be a big hurdle that must be adressed very well.
im thinking that you would now know a fair amount on the KHV virus and may be able to help me come up with a plan to import disease free fish, have them tested etc and then quarrantine them under our quarrantine inspection guidelines.
i am not familiar enough with the tests and their effectiveness.
so ill have to check all that out firstly to see if indeed there is still the chance that the disease could slip through any protocols i put forth.

it is up to me to put what i would like to do and then they advertise and talk with various interested parties to see if it is suitable.
i could put forth suggestions to minimize risk further if this law comes into play.
for example that says only a certain muber of pairs of fish are allowed to be brought in per farm here per year, from a KHV free farm in japan, to be tested prior to import. to be quarrantined for a certain amount of time and tested again once here, to be run through certain temperatures with a canary fish etc.
the fish need to be put through a registered quaarantine approved premises and be looked at by officers from the government etc.

if there are other ways that the risk can be minimised i can detail that as well.
for example the import of milt only or fry for example.

is there any truth in it that KHV cannot be transfered by sperm or through fry?
does anyone have a link to this information if so?

or has this not become fact yet but just theories..


i guess dick what i would like to know is that lets say you have 30 fish which mean the earth to you yet youd like to bring in some new fish. what great lenghts (apart from never bringing in any new stock) would you go with to ensure that the risk was very minimal to your fish?

[PapaBear]

I'll leave the shusui/asagi thoughts to DickB (since he actually knows what he's talking about and I don't have any...) but I will go ahead and toss in my 2 cents on the Kohaku spawn.
Long story short, yours look just like mine. A fairly high proportion of solid orange Koi with a smaller number of Kohaku. In our case the 2 males are Kohaku and the female is Kin Aka Bekko, so our results would naturally be somewhat different than yours. We saw roughly equal numbers of Kohaku, Sanke, and Bekko, with a higher % of plain orange fish.
There was also a single Longfin Cream Ogon male, and the longfin fry also had a high % of Orange fish, so I think the mother was the chief culprit in the coloring issue. One of our male Kohaku has persimmon beni, the other is redder, and the female has an orange red beni.

[ranskye]

thanks heaps papa bear for your two cents, im very glad you chimed in. any information is appreciated.

that tells me that it could be one of my kohakus has some bad lineage in it thats bringing up a lot of orange.. id need to hear from someone that has spawned two proper kohakus to say that they dont get the high ratio of those dull orange fish to come to some better conclusion, still though your info does point me somewhere for sure.
maybe its still the case that orange comes out of the kohauku and the kin aka bekko just the same./ i dont even know what aka bekko means!!
how is it that you get longfin in there???


i do know that one cage of my spawning kohaks ended up getting a lot of fungus as many of the eggs were very clumped together and it was still a little cold at that time of year.
so maybe my other cage of parents was more so represented in the crop, it may be one fish that came from a kohaku cross orange fish.. i think i took photos of the parents too but id have to try load em up from an old phone to see them again.

the thing is when you see the pics of kohakus from japanese farms you are only shown them as they are about 3 inches long so maybe all the dull orange has been culled out.
i think dick may have seen proper kohaku ratios though and mayeb thats why he said to be trying a different male, either that or he meant cause of the black tinges i had on the head in that pic. i do get some fish that are red on a white background but its really occasional. the few i have that i saw today in my big pond are certainly not like i see on here.

im here going through and selling about 5000 30mm to 50mm koi a week and am just wondering if i could be looking at much nicer fish than what i have.
sure its good to be making money from trash fish but itd be nice to increase the chances of finding a show type fish.

[PapaBear]

The Long Fin is per my wifes request... She love's 'em, so we have ONE (so far) and I'm hoping one is where it ends... wish me luck with that

The Aka Bekko female (red skin/black pattern) in our case has always been on the orange side. DickB has one with nice deep red. Maybe he'll post a pic for us to enjoy, and yes Dick, that is a shameless hint
Here are some shots of our parents.
First the Female.


Persimmon Beni Male Kohaku


Red Beni Male Kohaku


Long Fin Cream Ogon Male

[ranskye]

wow, my female kohaku is exactly like your male kohaku. eerily similar. i must post a photo of her, ill have to try catch her first though. the orange i can see could well come from your aka bekko.
i also have a fish similar to that on the farm that doesnt have the gin rin flecks.
thanks heaps for showing me the fish. see i was wondering if the orange comes from my female kohaku. itll need someone else to jump in that has bred some true kohakus from a prominant farm for us to know for sure and ill likley have to cross next time separately and grow them up separately. i have some 300,000 litre ponds that would suit doing an experimaent like that.
ill be back in a few days with some pics hopefully. its easter now and im out partying tonight. thanks a lot again papa bear.

[ranskye]

can i ask where the kohakus came from originally?

i dont know the farm that my stock came from in japan all those years ago but i may find out in the future as i know the guys name that lent his breeders to our farm..
having looked at your bekko yours is much much lighter in colour than my fish. still mine aint what youd call red either.
i have some kohakus that are more red than your and my fish too. which is why i consider the orange is maybe coming from our kohaku.
though my more red fish mainly have a very red part on the head and not much pattern on the body. ill be back with photos to see what you guys reckon about them. cheers.

[PapaBear]

In my case the 2 males are from an accidental spawn in a local hobbyist mud pond. Parents are likely from Yagenji and T.Sakai as the Kohaku in the pond were from them. BTW, if you ever have a flock spawn, it helps if the poorest parent in the mix is a former GC...
A few of their siblings have done fairly well in some shows, and one I know of is still in the mud growing like mad and finishing beautifully.