Hi. From my understanding the first cull should be around 1-2 inches unless you are raising black based koi like showa. From what I read you cull based on the shape of the koi. What am I looking for. Pictures would be helpful. Also I have a spawn of koi. Half are about 2" and the others may be 1" or less. I have separated the large from the small. The smaller ones don't seem to have a full body shape compared to the larger ones. Should I cull the smaller ones?
Pictures of the parent koi would be helpful in order to know what you have but at that size I would mainly be looking for are; bent tails, bad gills, crooked heads, missing fins and missing eye's.
That's an excellent looking group of parents and young, off to a great start.
It's true that the first cull of showa (the type I've done most) and utsuri is typically at around a week old to just keep the dark ones. Other types usually aren't culled until later. I am not sure about when and how to cull Shusui. Like Orlando mentioned, it may be best to focus mainly on deformities at this point. Crooked tails, mouths, heads, and gill deformities seem to be most common. Also any that look very skinny and frail or that are short and fat, dumpy looking. At this point, it's probably best not to cull just for being small, if the body shape looks okay.
It's good that you separated large from small, or you might not get many from the small.
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