2025 Hariwake, Beni Kikokuryu, Asagi spawn

[Matt24]

My Hariwake female and Beni Kikokuryu and Asagi males started spawning around 9 am. They are big koi. So they may go for a while.

My plans A and B did not work out. So this is plan C, but I'm very interested in how this will develop none-the-less ...

[Matt24]

Yamabuki Hariwake female, 16 years old, 31"
Beni Kikokuryu male, 18 years old, 27"
Asagi male, 13 years old, 28"

I've liked previous results between these two metallics in multiple spawns. Several times I had considered including the asagi, and finally did. I don't know if I can get any ki asagi or what else may come from it but we'll see.

The spawn began around 9 am with water 67 F, ambient 75 F, barometric pressure 30.06 (steady), not raining, 35% moon (waning). They had been in the tub since just after dark night before last, about 36 hours.

500 gallon tub filled to 350 gallons with 500 GPH pump
3 spawning ropes draped around the edges and a fourth wrapped around a pole on the bottom
Afterward treated tub with one dose of BSDT to prevent fungus.

[spkennyva]

Very nice parent set! Congrats, and good luck!

[Orlando]

This one will bring interesting variations because the Asagi isn't metalic or doitsu I believe this one will be the real puzzle for 2025

[Matt24]

Very nice parent set! Congrats, and good luck!

Thanks Sean. Glad I was finally able to get something goin' this spring.

This one will bring interesting variations because the Asagi isn't metalic or doitsu I believe this one will be the real puzzle for 2025

Ha! Definitely "coloring outside the lines" on this one!

[Matt24]

The first fry started hatching Sunday evening after 82 hours of ~68-70 F water. Spent much of Memorial Day seeing a lot more fry and cleaning up the gunk and changing water to fight ammonia that is higher than I'd like and nitrite that is surging. Occasionally adding Fritz ACCR for ammonia and salt for nitrite. Starting to feed them some yeast though they might be still consuming their yoke sack.

[Matt24]

It's day 6 after hatching, and I checked to see if there were any noticeable differences between the fry. I thought maybe half of those that had asagi blood might look darker or something, but they all look about the same at this point. For the record, here is a sampling. The photos were taken in the sun. So the ones that look like really dark fry are just shadows.

[Matt24]

Many years back, I had this same female in a spawn that included two metallic males and two non-metallic males. I recall that out of the 20 or so from that spawn that I raised beyond a couple of inches, all of them were metallic. From this I suspected, not based upon any research, that the metallic trait may be a dominant trait, and furthermore, this female must have 2 of these dominant genes in a pair, as opposed to one dominant gene and one recessive gene. Otherwise, approximately a quarter of her fry, approximately half of the fry from the 2 non-metallic males, would have been non-metallic. I suppose I may have culled all of those few earlier (though I doubt it) and not kept good records of it.

Now I see in "Japanese Ornamental Koi Carp: Origin, Variation and Genetics" by De Kock and Gomelsky, downloadable from https://www.researchgate.net/publica...n_and_Genetics , "Metallic koi have genotypes DD or Dd while non-metallic koi (genotype dd) are homozygous for recessive allele. When metallic koi are crossed with wild-type color common carp so called “ghost koi” (or “ghost carp”) appear. Ghost koi (Fig. 5) have traits which are controlled by dominant alleles of different genes - clearly visible “design” from metallic koi and black pigment melanin from wild-type color carp. Although ghost koi is not accepted by koi show standards, this color type is pretty popular in some countries."

This appears to confirm the part of my thinking that the metallic trait may be a dominant trait, where DD and Dd are metallic and dd are non-metallic. It does not prove that this female is DD, but this spawn is likely to show one way or the other beyond reasonable doubt. Now De Kock and Gomelsky's comments were about crossing metallic with wild carp with black pigment melanin, whereas I am crossing with asagi. I am not sure how that difference may affect the results.

[Coldspringsfarm]

Interested to see your results. As I just pointed out in my Kosui/Kohaku spawn, the Shusui male traits must have been recessive because essentially all fry are scaled with Kohaku patterns. Still hoping for some influence on pattern, even though I don't think lateral hi is considered desirable in Kohaku.

Sent from my SM-A146U1 using Tapatalk

[Matt24]

These pictures are from 16 days after hatching, and they are still looking a lot alike for now.

[Matt24]

Now at 3 weeks, here and there I'm occasionally seeing one with a black spot on the head. I gather this is a characteristic of asagi fry. But with this unusual crossing I don't know what to expect it to eventually look like.

[Matt24]

Here is a photo showing a couple with sumi on the head and some size variation at 22 days. I think for now, the photos in this black dishpan show them better than those above in the blue pan, which was so light that the phone camera did not want to allow all that light in, and made the fry look too dark.

[Matt24]

At 3 1/2 weeks, I could see it was time to start looking for larger ones that I needed to separate before too many little siblings got eaten. I used an adult koi net to catch a few tobi while letting most of the small ones slip through the holes. I expect to have to repeat this process a few times in the coming days. Here are a few of the tobi that are an inch or almost an inch. I left some smaller ones in the photo for size comparison.

[Matt24]

The fry are just past 5 weeks old. About a week and a half ago, I noticed a few jumping up in size much larger than the rest. So I would use the adult koi net to dip out only the 10-12 larger ones and separate them. Then every day or two, a new batch would pop up, and I would repeat that. Now there are over a hundred 1" - 1.75" of these larger fry in the separate tub. So I dipped up 100 of them to examine their characteristics. I have removed maybe 5 or 6 that had blatant deformities, but other than that, these have not been through a selection. Initial observations:

Despite one of the two males being non-metallic, all of the fry appear to be metallic as best I can tell, which matches the 2012 experience breeding this female with a group of males that was 50% non-metallic. Even on the few that are very dark, what little light coloring they have seems to shine.

About 75% have no sumi and are yellow (or orange) and white or solid white or solid yellow (or orange).
About 25% have at least some sumi combined with either white or yellow (or orange) or both.

[Matt24]

... use the adult koi net to dip out only the 10-12 larger ones and separate them. Then every day or two, a new batch would pop up, and I would repeat ...

I started to cull the smallest ones in the main tub that just were not seeming to grow. But then figured, why not let the tobi take care of that, as they surely already have been doing.

A couple of times a day, I've been putting a chunk of the blended seafood paste on a frisbee (weighted down by a rock) in the tobi tub. I typically make the blend ~75% seafood like canned tuna, salmon, mackerel, sardines, or herring, and ~25% veggies like pumpkin, peas, or veg-all. In spite of the poor photograph below, you can see that they like the recipe. The sandy looking stuff on the sides of the frisbee are granuals from ground adult koi pellets.

[Matt24]

Every day or two, a dozen or more tobi appear in the main tub, and I use the adult koi net to separate them from the little ones and move them to the flow through tub set up on the little pond.

Also, using the method described below, I netted the gunk off bottom of main tub, since it had been a week. There was less gunk this time than usual, maybe because the little ones are growing and eating more of their food. But I was surprised that there were only about 10 that I caught in the process, instead of hundreds that I usually get. I guess most of the slow ones have either grown and gotten faster or have been eaten by the tobi. Also, there had been about 5% of the fry that had some problem that caused them to be unable to swim properly, but would be sideways or at odd angles. The tobi seem to have weeded those out too. I figure the tobi are serving a helpful purpose there. I just need to relocate the tobi before they get too big and start eating slightly larger and healthier fry. I am hoping that with the little fry growing and the number of the smallest ones being reduced, before long it should get to a point that the tobi stop appearing because they are not getting those big protein meals.

Here's a process I use for removing old egg material and any gunk that is on the bottom while minimizing the number of fry that I lose by netting them out:

1. Put a little water that the fry are in into a large ice chest or tub to 1.5" - 2" deep.
2. Use a net with small holes like a 6" or 8" wide aquarium net to scoop out as much egg debris and any gunk that is on the bottom as possible and gently place it in the middle of the ice chest.
3. Gently use all fingers to dab down into the gunk repeatedly to frighten most of the healthy fry out of it. They swim out all around the edges of the ice chest.
4. Net the majority of the gunk blob out of the middle of the ice chest while avoiding the crowds around the sides.
5. Use hand to make the water swirl all around the ice chest. This causes the remaining gunk to settle in the middle.
6. Repeat the third and fourth steps to get out a bunch more gunk. (This can be done again to remove even more.)
7. Then I stick the ice chest into the fry tub and pour the fry back in as gently as possible.