Sangreaal's Growout Form

[Sangreaal]

Quote: Originally Posted by PapaBear Good shots (as expected). Mikado's face has a lot of character, and the growth is really nice for living indoors. We're getting anxious to make the big move outside too, but our weather patterns have also been pretty unstable up to this point. Since we're coming up on the June picture/measurement updates for the contest anyway we're just gonna wait till we move 51 outside for the photo's, etc... I'm wondering if girth development won't improve once moved to deeper water. Deep diving ought to provide some great "buff up" exercise...

Thanks Larry.

Hopefully June will find the weather more cooperative with this venture. They won't know what to do with so much length and depth to swim in once they go outside. Hopefully that'll make up for their current digs, which is the old 150 gallon. I exercise them alot in there, though. LOL Up, down, all around--they chase the hand whether it's full of pellets or goodies or not. Everyone that visits will visit the fish and play with them too. But I think the low level of natural light doesn't nurture their coloration, even though I have a high tech hood with everything from moonlight to full spectrum sunshine in it. As you can see from the latest pics, the sumi is down again, especially in the Little Blue, who was slurry sealed with sumi a few weeks ago and is now basically patternless all over again.

*thinking*

Is there such a thing as growing a fish too fast?

[Sangreaal]

Here's a few more Mikado pics just taken.







(I just love the parallax effect on this pic *LOL*)


(oh if she only had some tangerine lip gloss *L*)


(I just love this koi! Mikado's always thinking, always plotting a way to get a hold of any kind of food. That's what they're all about, you know. Eating. Carp don't eat to live, they live to eat! Just about any conversation to be had out of a koi revolves around food, and the eating of it. That's just the way it is.
What you see here is the classically furtive, "Hey! Hey! What's that in your hand?" interrogation as Mikado rushes down the glass imagining I'm on my way to feed, inciting a riot that roils along behind her, everyone thinking she's on to something good and that they have to beat her to it before its gone...but its gone before anyone gets there)


Where's the pellets?


(They're absolutely sure that's a flashing box of food, not a camera at all!)


Mikado gets beat out of a pellet by Gimpy, my Omosako wannabe Shiro Utsuri growout from another parish...


(Trying to convince me it's time to eat)


(Who doesn't think those are the cutest faces on the planet? If I'm any kind of koi keeper, it's going to be great to look at these pics again 5-10 years from now....)

[kntry]

Marie, you have no idea how many times I thought about choosing Mikado as my first choice. I love her face.

I'm so glad you have Gentle. My Tancho lost all her Beni and is now a nice looking Shiro. I guess my pH is too high.

[Sangreaal]

Quote: Originally Posted by kntry Marie, you have no idea how many times I thought about choosing Mikado as my first choice. I love her face. I'm so glad you have Gentle. My Tancho lost all her Beni and is now a nice looking Shiro. I guess my pH is too high.

Is it pH that does that? I tried to find Junichi's post in the monster Shiro Growout thread where he talked about what to do to fade the beni, but the search function wasn't working for me either and the sheer number of posts was too intimidating. *LOL* I'd love to see a fully faded out Tancho pic of yours. I'm sure it's going to be a beautiful SU!

Mikado....I'm so glad she has another fan like me. I think alot of people passed her by because of her thick and expansive shiroji--she didn't give a clue as to what her sumi pattern might be, or if there would even be one. I chose her because of it--with hopes that her menkaburi mask would hold on that lovely face of her's. Or his....she's stretching out so fast that she's not putting on much if any girth and looks more male from topside. Thickness will come later, I suppose, once she goes to the pond, or not, if she's destined to be a skinny male.

Gentle....she is such a sweetie pie! So very placid and thoughtful. She gives good energy! And I'm happy her tancho has cleaned up without disappearing. She's going to be heavy on the sumi, methinks, with shiroji as an afterthought, but that's okay. I've tried to capture the submerged sumi I see on camera, but it just doesn't translate right. Maybe once I bowl these guys I can find an angle that works.

If I ever have to find a home for either of these for some unforseen reason, I know who to call now.

[kntry]

Definitely keep me in mind. LOL We seem to have the same taste.

I'm not sure about the pH causing the Beni to disappear but I was reading another post today that said it did. The thread about bouncing pH.

I can't/don't want to try to catch them now that they're in the pool. They're finally settling in and I just moved my big girls in there so they are still scary. When I put the Tancho in 3 weeks ago, the Beni was 1/2 the original size. I'm thankful it disappeared altogether instead of leaving 1 small spot. She's going to be a very pretty Shiro.

All of mine have gained much more girth than any previous small koi I've had. I was impressed when I netted them out of the QT. Except for the smallest one, my 2nd pick, I think they're all female. The smallest is still too little to tell.

[Sangreaal]

Bowled Mikado today for the growout stats and it's official--s/he's 9" in length.







That's my salad bowl that I've sacrificed for this event. *LOL* Turquoise always was my color.

I would have preferred a little more bulk by now, but the fish is what s/he is--muscular and long. S/he is, at the very least though, graceful.

But check out Mikado's submerged sumi--it's getting close to busting out the next time it rises, which seems to be an every other week occurrance--each time there's just a little more that doesn't recede back into oblivion. Looks like s/he's going to have a delicate checkerboard pattern with a clear white shoulder, fairly balanced side to side and front to back.

At least I hope so.

The sheen of her skin and scales is just lustrous. I just hope that her frame fills out once she's out to the pond....

(I added a close up bowl pic to my first post for comparison with her very first pic...)

[kntry]

Very nice, Marie.

[Meg]

I must say that is a dern pretty fish!
Marie have you noticed how the sumi on her face is balanced out by the opposite dark pec fin? then the sumi sweeps over to the opposite side of her body again.....pretty cool! to me her pattern flows nicely thus far

[Sangreaal]

Quote: Originally Posted by Meg I must say that is a dern pretty fish! Marie have you noticed how the sumi on her face is balanced out by the opposite dark pec fin? then the sumi sweeps over to the opposite side of her body again.....pretty cool! to me her pattern flows nicely thus far

Meg, you have the same twisted way of looking at fish patterns as I do. *LOL* That detail of balance was my grasping of straws when I picked her out from the growout pics. It does balance, in an odd sort of way. Just wish I could see her now because....

...Mikado and the rest of the tosai went out to the green pond a couple of days ago! They've been coming up to feed in the evening when the sun is just beginning to set, but you can't pay them to cruise the top waters yet, so no pics. Yet. 12' round, 3ft deep, and no such thing as seeing the bottom until I install the flow through, then it'll be a week or so before it clears. I thought they'd like the anonymity of a green pond to get used to 3500 gallons after their long time in the much much smaller indoor tanks.

I miss their happy faces looking at me from the aquarium, though. Kinda lonely in the house now, with only goldfish to talk to....

[Sangreaal]

Only 3 days in the pond and trouble hits.....

Went out this morning just after typing the last post to Meg and found that the pond had cleared considerably after having left the hose on in it all night. I also found the Little Blue's dead body floating on the bottom.

Have not confirmed by scraping and scoping it or the other fish, but with the sunken eyes, notched nose, pale gills and the fact that Little Blue seemed quite fine yesterday at feeding time, I conferred and shared pics of the cadaver with some KHA's online, all of whom thought that it might be costia. Upon hearing that, I did the knee jerk thing to protect everyone else in there--treated the pond with Proform-C, the only thing besides PP that I have to treat it with immediately.

The rest of the fish seem fine as far as their behavior goes; other than Gentle, who was hanging back from the others this morning, but is schooling with them now.

Wow....nothing like getting hit in the head with a worry-hammer when one least expects it....

Goodbye Little Blue. I'll miss you.