Koi Breeding 2010

Photo's of Club Members Koi
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roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Koi Breeding 2010

Post by roselanekoi »

Well it's that time of year again to think about breeding a few grand champions. This year I'm going to try Showa, a variety I've not had much success with in the past.

The parent koi are shown in the attached photo. The female koi at the front is a large Hiroi bred koi. This was a very expensive koi when purched in Japan a few years ago by its previous owner but unfortunately has developed a deformity of the spine. The skin quality and pattern remain superb and I'm told that this deformity should not be inherited by the offspring (we hope). The male is a Sakuma bred showa.
Parents Spawning.jpg
Parents Spawning.jpg (211.59 KiB) Viewed 22701 times
The koi spawned successfully yesterday and now it's a case of waiting a few days to see what hatches out,

Colin
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2010

Post by roselanekoi »

After a sucessful spawning I'm afraid I can't say the same about the hatching, no fry at all hatched out. This is the first time ever I've had this happen, I guess either the female is infertile or the male is firing blanks.

The task for today is now to clean out the masses of spawn and set everything up for another try this evening. This time I'll be trying a couple of Sanke parents that I've bred from before and may even introduce a male koi of matsunosuke lineage that I bred myself some years ago.

Colin
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2010

Post by roselanekoi »

After my first unsuccessful attempts with Showa my Sanke spawning met with a little more success. I used the two pair of Sanke pictured below. The female Bekko (It was once a Tancho Sanke) on the right and the male Sanke at the top is a pairing I've used before. The female Sanke on the left is a Richdon Exclusive whilst the male Sanke in the centre is one I bred myself and has matsunosuke blood in it.
Sanke Parents.jpg
Sanke Parents.jpg (154.57 KiB) Viewed 22652 times
Once again results have been disappointing with a very poor hatch rate but even so I've now got a couple of thousand fry. I'm a bit mystified as to why so few eggs have hatched and I'm suspicious that I may have overdosed with the malachite green I use to treat the water to prevent fungus forming on the infertile eggs.

The fry are now around a week old and seem to be doing well. They are currently being fed twice a day on brine shrimp with intermediate feeds of a mixture of powdered egg yolk, very fine powdered fry food and un-encapsulated brine shrimp (The outer shells have been removed).

The biggest task so far has been syphoning off all the infertile eggs from the bottom of the pond before they start to rot and pollute the water. Not wanting to throw any fry away I then sift through the waste to extract any fry removed which is very time consuming.

Colin
MitchR
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:08 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2010

Post by MitchR »

Hi colin,
all very interesting mate, good luck with the new babies.
ps the 2 GC i got of you are doing very well ;) ;) ;)
warmest regards .............tancho Mitch
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2010

Post by roselanekoi »

Here's an update on how things are going, at the time the photos were taken the koi were 2 1/2 weeks old and the largest are 30 mm in length. The koi are growing well but it's obvious that around 50% are just orange (usually the biggest fry) with no sign of any sumi so they need to be culled out if I am to concentrate on Sanke.
BEFORE
BEFORE
Sanke Fry 1.jpg (231.86 KiB) Viewed 22567 times
AFTER
AFTER
Sanke Fry 2.jpg (231.1 KiB) Viewed 22566 times
I've been using as a guide some video clips on the NND website which show Marusho carry out his first and second culls.

http://kbj.jugem.jp/

Now I'll have to wait a few weeks to see if I've got any of similar potential.

Colin
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2010

Post by roselanekoi »

Now 6 weeks old one or two are starting to show some promise.
Tategoi Sanke.jpg
Tategoi Sanke.jpg (187.4 KiB) Viewed 22516 times
It never ceases to amaze me how big a difference there is in the growth rates. The fry in the picture below are all the same age and from the same parents.
Large & Small.jpg
Large & Small.jpg (87.26 KiB) Viewed 22517 times
The two large fry are over 50mm in length whilst the very smallest are still around 10mm. Those that grow the quickest are nearly always single colour or are throwbacks to the original wild Carp and are usually discarded first.

Colin
roselanekoi
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: Koi Breeding 2010

Post by roselanekoi »

Just carried out the final cull of the year with the surviving koi being moved to my 550 gallon indoor growing on tank for the winter. I suppose by this stage only around 10% of the fry have survived with the largest being around 3 inches in length.
Sanke Fry Sept 2010.jpg
Sanke Fry Sept 2010.jpg (187.98 KiB) Viewed 22428 times
The fry are still looking very messy but from the experience of previous sanke spawnings I would expect the sumi to tidy up considerably as the fry grow. Whether I'm proved correct with this last statement only time will tell,

Colin
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