Simply Koi and More Koi

They look fantastic Gregg. The skin on them looks great which must mean you are looking after them really well.

Well done!

Lisa

Hi James When Mark was at Kamihata's, Tanaka, the farm manager, showed him how the sumi on low grade Showa changed in density depending on the background they were culled against at first cull. Sanke, however, put in the same situation don't change. This shows that the cell structure (chromataphors)...

Hi Stuart It's difficult to say without seeing it in the flesh whether the first koi would make a good brood fish. It's downfall would really be its secondary hi. Omosako may have brood stock with secondary hi, but it is not desireable and I am sure that if he comes across a koi with the same qualit...

Hi Tom You’re absolutely right about hard water being better for sumi – this has been our experience here at Cuttlebrook. When Mark worked in Japan in 1986 he was told by Mr Kamihata and others that hard water made good sumi, green water made good hi and good living conditions made goo...

Hi Tom

So are you saying that sumi develops better in soft water?


Lisa

As soon as I saw the picture of the first koi, it reminded me of ours so much that I just had to post the picture. It's not a fair comparison though as our poor boy is kept in an unheated pond and definitely hasn't been honed for showing! We used him for the first time last year and he was one of tw...

Hi Lee

It's one of our brood fish and we've had for a few years now. It was one of the males we used last year.

Lisa

Hi Tom

Why don't you think the sumi would last in the UK? This one seems to have done OK - mind you it wasn't imported from Japan.
[img]http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m16/Cutt ... agoiFe.jpg[/img]

Lisa

Nice pics guys - I had no idea you all took so many! It was great to see you all yesterday - I have to say, stood in the hot houses you have no idea just how dark it's getting outside and by about 3.30pm the light in the polytunnels was not too good - roll on summer! I look forward to seeing you all...

Hi Justin Good food and good living conditions are what brood fish need and if you can provide that then you are off to a good start. A Yamatonishiki is basically a metallic Sanke, so what you would be doing is crossing a Showa with a Sanke. If you want to achieve specific recognised varieties from ...

Hi John

Elizabeth's list is good.

Another thing you can do to tell an adult male from female is to feel the gill plates and if they feel rough like sand paper its a boy and if they are smooth then its a girl.

Lisa

Hi Phil

I have sent you a PM.

Lisa

Hi Bob These Sanke are in a separate pond and will be until the autumn. It's important to us to keep them separate for as long as possible so that we can see the difference in development between the offspring of one female and another. We still have several thousand Sanke fry to sort through so I k...

Hi Phil If you suspect a parasite problem on fry that are too small to scrape, then I'm afraid you may have to sacrifice one and look at it under the microscope if it is very small, or try to get some mucus from it if it is a little bigger. Unfortunately, it's no good trying to do a scrape on a fry ...

No wonder it seemed to take forever to get through them all! :shock: We don't normally count how many fry are in a harvest, but it was just such a good harvest that we were curious to know how many there were. We only kept 3500 to grow on because we want to encourage good growth rates in the ones we...