2023 Hariwake, Beni Kikokuryu, Kujaku spawn

[Matt24]

Very nice Matt! Amazing diversity in these guys. I agree with Orlando's comments - congrats!!

What is the approximate size of Orlando's pick?

Thanks everyone. Diverse looks is one advantage of using 3 varieties of oyagoi. They can reproduce themselves or other offshoot varieties and either fully scaled or Doitsu (leather or linear) versions of each.

That kin kikokuryu (or beni later if the yellow trends toward orange over time) is about 2" at 3 months old. Most of these are between 1.75" and 3", except the one in the second photo of post #58 with the blue background is 3.5".

Here are a couple more angles on the kin kikokuryu.

[Matt24]

I spent most of yesterday moving fry around and removing quite a few for deformities, bad body shapes (way too plump or too thin), or scattered scales. Not culling much for patterns at this point. Now the numbers are down to ~240, with ~140 in the 1.5" - 4" range in the 1800 gallon pond and ~100 in the 0.75" - 1.5" range in the 500 gallon tub.

As you may recall, I have been letting the tremendous numbers of smaller fry grow out in the pond and have been keeping the larger fry in the tub. Every time I net out all the new tobi from the little pond and move them to the tub, I wait a couple of weeks and there will be a new batch of tobi again. I've repeated this cycle 3 or 4 times until finally almost all the little fry have either been eaten or have grown up substantially.

So I did the big swap. The hardest part was catching them all out of the 1800 gallon pond, and there are actually a dozen or so that I never did catch. After reducing the numbers, there were ~45 over 1.5" (pictured below) that I put back in. Then I moved the ones from the tub to the pond and put the little ones in the tub, to see if they'll ever grow up.

I notice one in the group photos that doesn't seem to go with the others. It seems to be a kohaku with hi toward the front. Not sure, but I don't think it is metallic like the rest. It may be from the flock spawn of the small 13"-14" koi (showa, kohaku, etc) that were in the little pond this spring. I doubted many if any of those few fry would survive when I moved in thousands of larger fry from the main metallics spawn that could eat them. I'll be watching this odd one as a test of what could come from spawning my young group. And maybe there are one or two more showa or kohaku in the little tub. I'll keep an eye out for them anyway.

[Matt24]

Three weeks ago, I had separated the ~100 0.75" - 1.5" runts in the 500 gallon tub, and put their ~140 larger siblings in the little pond.

After 3 weeks in the tub with plenty of high protein food, I netted them all and saw there had been a little growth. With them now a little larger and me checking closer, I could see that about 70% of these had some deformity or scattered scales that I had not see last time around. Of the rest, about 10% had grown to above 2". So I graduated those to the little pond and left the other 20% in the tub for a while longer.

[Orlando]

Matt deformities for me have been down this year but slow growth it's what got me scratching my head, I can't explain it.

[Matt24]

Yesterday, I walked out in the yard to see a huge great blue heron fly off from the little pond. I have a net over it, but still worry a GBH could do some damage with the water not very far below the net. So I drained the pond down some so that the water was at least 12" below the net. Then we got a big rain last night, getting the surface to 9" below the net. So I lowered it again today and gave the filter a cleaning at the same time. While doing so, I found 4" koi in there. No visible deformities, good shine, but skinny, and without much color. At first I thought is was a kikokuryu. But looking close, I could see some faint yellow on its back. So it's a kin kikokuryu. Hopefully, after a few good meals and some sunshine, it will thicken and some more color will show up.

[spkennyva]

Hi Matt,

Sorry about the GBH!! Never of lack of hungry critters. I had one that I scared off 4 times within about 90 minutes.

Your fish look great. Looking forward to seeing these continure to grow!!

[Matt24]

I went through them again this morning, removing some with deformities that become easier to see as they grow. The most common in this group seem to be deformities of the gills or pectoral fins. It's a bummer when you see that in an otherwise nice fish. Here are some of the better ones. I'll try to post a few more pics of some of the others later.

This 6" gin matsuba is the largest at this point.


Not a great pattern, but I wonder if this kujaku will stay yellow or become orange.


I'm a little concerned these wide ones below may pork up too much as they get older. The orange one is leather. The yellow one is linear with some extra scales on the shoulders.

[Orlando]

They look very nice I personally like the 5th one top to bottom

[Matt24]

Near the end of August I had mentioned:

I notice one in the group photos that doesn't seem to go with the others. It seems to be a kohaku with hi toward the front. Not sure, but I don't think it is metallic like the rest. It may be from the flock spawn of the small 13"-14" koi (showa, kohaku, etc) that were in the little pond this spring. I doubted many if any of those few fry would survive when I moved in thousands of larger fry from the main metallics spawn that could eat them. I'll be watching this odd one as a test of what could come from spawning my young group. And maybe there are one or two more showa or kohaku in the little tub. I'll keep an eye out for them anyway.

Well so far I have not found any other kohaku or showa, but I did find a ginrin shirogoi that is not metallic. Not much to look at, but that makes two from the flock spawn of non-metallics that made it among the larger and more numerous metallics.

[Matt24]

Here are some of the others ...

[Orlando]

So far have you noticed in your past metallic spawns if the lighter ones get darker or remain like they look now.

[Matt24]

I've gotta throw in this crazy koi fry survival story. This morning I went out to give the hens their morning scratch. I went to open the door to their 3.5' tall enclosure when a little flash caught my eye!



We have a liner laying on top of the hen pen to give them shade and protection from rain. This 2" yellow-orange fully scaled ogon was swimming in a little puddle on top of the liner! It had rained a lot last night, and the puddle was a little less than 2' x 2' and an inch deep in the middle. As you can tell from the photos, part of the space is so shallow that its back sticks out of the water.

So how did this happen? Last Saturday, I had caught and gone through the fry removing deformities. Part of the time, I would set a dishpan of fry on top of the hen pen to look them over. This one must have jumped out of the pan into the puddle without me noticing ... and stayed there for 5 full days and nights! My wife and I had each been out there several times over those days and not noticed it. Perhaps it was hiding under a leaf.

There had been no aeration until it rained last night. The PH in the puddle was about 7.0. The ammonia was 0.1 ppm, lower than I expected since there were a few dead leaves.

The rain on the fifth night had made the puddle significantly deeper. For the first 4 days, it would have been even more shallow.

Since the puddle is open to the air above and below, its temperature should have closely followed the air temperatures. Air temps over the 5 days have ranged from daily highs of 82-90 F to daily lows of 62-68 F with an average day to night cooling of 22 degrees F.

It could also have easily been eaten by a bird or some critter. But against all odds, there it was. So I put it back into the little pond.

[SamAxe51]

But against all odds, there it was. So I put it back into the little pond.

That one has earned it's right to live.

[Matt24]

So far have you noticed in your past metallic spawns if the lighter ones get darker or remain like they look now.

[Edit: I don't know why there are links to most of these pictures below, rather that displaying the pictures side by side, which would make them easier to compare.]

Looking back at posts #64-69 of the 2021 spawn comparing development photos of the 6 that I have kept into their third year, the general trend is from darker toward lighter.
https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showt...ku-spawn/page4

I am not sure if there are specific types of lighter metallic fry that you are a to. But the one in post #65 of that thread has an example of a kin kikokuryu at 2 months and at 2+ years.
Attachment 617470 Attachment 617466

Post #67 has shows a kujaku (a Doitsu one in this case) getting lighter. Here at 2.5 months and at 2+ years.
Attachment 617481 Attachment 617476

Post #69 has shows a the white in a hariwake getting lighter from light gray to white. Here at 1.5 months and at 2+ years.
Attachment 617493 Attachment 617488

And from this year, the largest gin matsuba is moving from looking like it has a tire track down its back to a field of dark spots. Here at 3 months and 4.5 months.
Attachment 617528

[Matt24]

With the fry nearly 5 months old and most being over 3" and some 5"-6", I am probably being overly patient with these under-achievers. I went through the few in the tub and moved 5 that had finally reached 2" (top two pictures) to the little pond. I kept 5 more that are still in the 1.25" - 1.5" range (bottom 3 pictures) in the tub. They will have a little more time to grow, but the tub can freeze up if it gets really cold. So if we get a bitter cold forecast this winter, I'll shut the tub down and move any from the tub to the little pond, ready or not.

[Matt24]

... I kept 5 more that are still in the 1.25" - 1.5" range (bottom 3 pictures) in the tub. They will have a little more time to grow, but the tub can freeze up if it gets really cold. So if we get a bitter cold forecast this winter, I'll shut the tub down and move any from the tub to the little pond, ready or not.

After another month and a half, with lots of food and lots of water for each (though cool), these runtiest ones are still in the 1.5" - 1.75" range, having only grown an average of 0.25" over that time.

I went ahead and moved them to the little pond with the others. Maybe time will tell if these under achievers will ever start catching up some next year.

[coolwon]

Maybe they are short of water movement and added oxygen.

Try stirring up the surface of the pond with some water movement by adding an air pump

and air stones. Looks boring to me!

The water is so still they have no need to eat properly

[Matt24]

Maybe that could help the growth, though over 90% of them are much larger than these 5 tiny ones, some over 5". Also, I've raised many spawns in this tub and pond with the same pumps. Normally, I cull those that don't seem to grow, but I decided to try to let a few grow out for longer this time.

[coolwon]

Added air, turning the water over into any water supporting fish life must benefit the fish.

The oxygen is in the air above the water.

It's essential to create a surface water disturbance to allow the oxygen above the water to

be absorbed and replace the depleted oxygen being used - up 24 hours a day by the

biological filter and the fish.

Too late for the others to have benefited.