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  • Results 1 to 18 of 18

    Thread: Rough Diamonds..!

    1. #1
      Beni Kiko is offline Junior Member
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      Rough Diamonds..!

      Hi Everyone,
      Was wondering, is it possible to produce "show winning" koi with average parents?
      I understand the better the parentage the better your chances, but with so many offspring can a normal/average koi produce the odd stunner ?

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    2. #2
      Orlando is offline Senior Member
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      It all depends what you would categorized as average parents. Also you would have to look in what categories you would like to compete even with the really good blood lines every time they spawn there are thousands of fry that are worthless, the number's of better ones increase with the greater number of spawnings but to answer your question you could get lucky and produce one or two koi that could compete in a show if the breeder's are in the higher end of the average koi. I have a phrase that I use quite often when this discussion is taking place with friends, and that is "garbage in garbage out". If you're considering spawning koi to compete in shows invest in a decent group of koi you don't have to have 10k dollar koi to produce decent piece's get in touch with a reputable importer and talk to him or her let them know what you are interested in doing and buy them young raise them to adults and select the ones you would consider better average koi from that group.

    3. #3
      Beni Kiko is offline Junior Member
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      Hi Orlando, Thanks for the great advice, I like your phrase "garbage in garbage out, that is the truth of it, we down south in England have a saying "You can't polish a turd ! " which pretty much equates to the same thing.
      You get what you pay for...
      Many thanks.

    4. #4
      SimonW's Avatar
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      I think that we can use human parents as example. Will 2 ugly parents give birth to beautiful kids? Of course not as likely as 2 beautiful parents would do, but it is still possible. Just as Einsteinīs parents probably were not as bright as he was, but they still succeeded in giving birth to him.

      My estimation (highly unscientific) is that if the parent koi are very good (lets say they are worth USD 10 000), 0,1% of their fry will eventually become as good, while for a pair of parent koi with so-so quality (lets say they are worth USD 100), the chance will be less than 0,01%.

      So you must produce a lot of fry and then look hard to find the diamond among them!
      Last edited by SimonW; 12-28-2020 at 06:25 PM.

    5. #5
      pondfishguy is offline Senior Member
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      Wow! So much to comment on here. Ugly kids? By whose definition? Is a tan beautiful? Guess you need to go out and travel the world to see how different cultures define beauty.

      "Show quality" - another man made definition. Breeding pond grade fish will never produce "show" quality offspring as it is not in the gene pool. Breed two "show" quality fish and all of the offspring potentially have the desirable characteristics. They are then culled for deformities, pattern, coloring, conformation, etc for what "judges" determine to be prize winning (part of which is politics). Then raise them in ideal conditions (good water quality, temperature, etc), feed high quality food, let nature take its course and bingo, you have a prize winner.

    6. #6
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      Quote Originally Posted by pondfishguy View Post
      Wow! So much to comment on here. Ugly kids? By whose definition? Is a tan beautiful? Guess you need to go out and travel the world to see how different cultures define beauty.

      "Show quality" - another man made definition. Breeding pond grade fish will never produce "show" quality offspring as it is not in the gene pool. Breed two "show" quality fish and all of the offspring potentially have the desirable characteristics. They are then culled for deformities, pattern, coloring, conformation, etc for what "judges" determine to be prize winning (part of which is politics). Then raise them in ideal conditions (good water quality, temperature, etc), feed high quality food, let nature take its course and bingo, you have a prize winner.
      There IS beauty and there IS ugliness. Never try to tell me otherwise :-)

      Yes, even pond-grade koi can produce beautiful koi, though they surely will not win GC in the AJKS. But on the other hand, majority of the beautiful koi produced by the top breeders in the world probably never win any price at any major koi show, as number of beautiful koi by far excesses number of prices.

      Not said that it is worth the effort to try to find the rough diamond, when the chance is so slim. So if you want to have fry which can turn into great quality koi, you better get great quality parent koi, or at least not so far from the aimed quality.
      Last edited by SimonW; 12-28-2020 at 07:25 PM.

    7. #7
      pondfishguy is offline Senior Member
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      Yes, I see your point. I suppose the more metal rings you can place on a womans neck to stretch it to a painful and dangerous length does create the exceptional beauty desired. Not making a judgement. Never try to tell me otherwise :-)

    8. #8
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      Quote Originally Posted by pondfishguy View Post
      Yes, I see your point. I suppose the more metal rings you can place on a womans neck to stretch it to a painful and dangerous length does create the exceptional beauty desired. Not making a judgement. Never try to tell me otherwise :-)
      Of course, some people may have weird idea on beauty, like having a ring in the nose, or as you pointed out, many rings around the long neck. But you seem to have forgotten the time when you were young, and if you were then a boy, both you and your friends knew which girls in your school/neighborhood were more beautiful than others.

    9. #9
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      Quote Originally Posted by pondfishguy View Post
      By whose definition?
      There actually is a science behind defining who is and is not attractive https://www.goldennumber.net/facial-...-golden-ratio/
      ~ Jose

    10. #10
      Hope J is offline Senior Member
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      If it makes you feel any better, I bought an ugly Koi with a weird Beak head that turned out pretty decent. I don't know what the parents looked like or how much they were worth, but it was a pet store purchase for less than $20.
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    11. #11
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Quote Originally Posted by Beni Kiko View Post
      Hi Everyone,
      Was wondering, is it possible to produce "show winning" koi with average parents?
      I understand the better the parentage the better your chances, but with so many offspring can a normal/average koi produce the odd stunner ?
      Is it possible? I can't say it is impossible. But to produce one that would even win a minor category in a small show from $100 parents would be very unlikely. And the chances of producing a grand champion would be astronomical. You can get a small number of pretty good looking pond fish, but even that is difficult.

    12. #12
      Matt24's Avatar
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      It is certainly possible to produce koi that look better than their parents. Otherwise, none of the koi varieties we have today would have ever been produced in the first place, and our hobby would not exist.

    13. #13
      mplskoi is offline Supporting Member
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      I have not done any breeding of fish, not even studied it. I have had some success breeding hounds though. What I have learned from hound breeding is that if your parent stock is low grade then your offspring will almost always be low grade. The more generations in a row that are of either low grade or high quality, the more likely that the offspring will be like their parents. So if you have 5 generations of duds, then you breed a female dud to a male of high quality the female is almost certainly going to give 50% of the litter her low quality, and of the 50% that have an (at best) 15-50% chance to turn out ok, their offspring will carry the "dud" qualities from mom for many generations.

      On the other hand if you have 5 generations of high quality on both the top side and bottom side of a pedigree then you have pretty good chances of getting high quality pups. (5 generations is not a magic number, the more generations though the more locked in qualities become). With hounds even breeding two top quality dogs that each have 5 generations of top quality parentage, your pups really only have about a 25-50% chance of turning out great. A hound that I owned and studded was on the "Top Reproducers" list for over 3 years and he only had about 12-15% chance of his offspring earning "hunting titles". Using "hunting titles" as the metric might be similar to saying a fish is "show quality".

      What I am getting at here is this- if you have pond mutts that were culls from Taniguchi or Sakaii or some other top shelf breeder and you bred them to each other your odds might be decent. But if your pond mutts came from some back yard breeder that was on his or her 10th generation of breeding and EVERY SINGLE one that they ever produced was below "show quality", even for a local show, then almost certainly you would not get anything of any quality.

      Remember that even the top breeders in Japan are culling at an incredibly high rate- likely well over 90% - to have anything of decent quality.

      SO the real question becomes, and it is the question I ask friends when they talk about breeding dogs that meant to produce "working dogs", and if they don't turn out they get culled. Culled hard- like a bullet in the head and left in a ditch somewhere. That question is:
      How many creatures are you will to ruthlessly kill in hopes that a few turn out?
      For me the answer is a very very low number. I try get every hound that doesn't turn out to have the chance to be a house pet. A few that are mean have to be put down. As a breeder every one put down due to quality issues is a heartbreaker (for me).
      How many hundreds of fry are you willing to throw on the fertilizer pile? When you have thrown the thousandth fry into a pile to die just because they are so ugly you cant give them away, will it start to eat at your conscience?

    14. #14
      Matt24's Avatar
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      In the world of fish, which is pretty much all of the world except for the dry places, extremely low survival rate is the reality. Whether it is on a Japanese farm, somebody's back yard, rivers and lakes anywhere or the oceans, that's how it is. That's why most fish reproduce in the thousands, or in some cases, millions.
      Last edited by Matt24; 12-29-2020 at 09:29 PM. Reason: grammar

    15. #15
      coolwon is offline Senior Member
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      I think anything is possible in this hobby.

      My friend breeds some good looking fish from his hand picked Japanese fish, which he pairs with the right partners.

      It's then up to the hobbyist to spot it and nurture it up to be the winner.

      The Japanese breeder is looking for multiple good looks to keep the sales up from the good looking perfect parents to keep the numbers and the business operating.

      Garfield
      Find more about Weather in Durban, ZA

    16. #16
      KTownKoinut is offline Senior Member
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      I know a guy out this way that never culls. Most of his fish look like,,,,,,shhh,,,,,,crap!!! He had a bunch that were push'n 8", that he tried selling me.....they looked like wild carp! I think I mentioned somethin about garden fertilizer......LOL

      If you're gonna breed 'em, ya gotta have the knackers, for whackers!!!....

      Oh no! Here comes Mr. Grammar now......4 3 2 1......

    17. #17
      Matt24's Avatar
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      Quote Originally Posted by KTownKoinut View Post
      ... Oh no! Here comes Mr. Grammar now......4 3 2 1......

    18. #18
      kdh is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by Beni Kiko View Post
      Hi Everyone,
      Was wondering, is it possible to produce "show winning" koi with average parents?
      I understand the better the parentage the better your chances, but with so many offspring can a normal/average koi produce the odd stunner ?
      Large koi show. NO
      Small koi show. Possibly as it depends on the competition of that day. But doubt GC maybe best in class.



      But I could be wrong as I am not familiar with every koi shows results in the US.
      Last edited by kdh; 12-30-2020 at 09:24 AM.

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