30 October 2011

I placed my Shiro Utsuri koi in the spawning vat on thursday morning, pre-empting a possible spawning over the weekend, but then it started to rain and it got colder and they lost all intrest. I was planning to move them back this afternoon, i took a nice sunday nap and went out at 17:00 to move the "non performers" back to the main pond....And guess what - while i was napping they started spawning...so my whole plan with the hand stripping and photos and documenting is not happening anymore as they have spawned already.

Atleast there will be babies to show soon.

I used 1 Mazaki female and 1 Mazaki male and 1 Omosaku male.

First female, is done. I let her continue to spawn naturally till 8pm, then i took her out antithetised and hand stripped the last eggs out of her.

I then moved the eggs to the grow on vats and decided to throw the 2nd female in among the males in the "dirty" water. They immediately started to chase her and so the 2nd female is getting spawned. I dont care about this once eggs - Just want her spawned.

Here are the parents.

Mazaki Female 65cm	Mazaki Male 55cm	Omosako Male 54cm
Takeda Female 60cm (local bred)	Mazaki Male 55cm	Omosako Male 54cm

7 November 2011

They hached!!! not much to see yet but they are alive!



29 November 2011

Once the koi have spawned and the egss have been moved to their vats i do not do any water changes for the first month and a half. I simply top up. No filtration, just air.



I have also had a disappointing spawning. My females dropped their eggs beautifully but very few got fertilized, and i used 2 males....so things dont always go the way we want it to go...

Some of my Utsuri fry. Ill probably will start to cull this weekend.

3 December 2011

Shiro Utsuri, culling after 1 month. Removed all the non black koi fry from the vats.

Did not actually cull the fry that i removed, i simply moved them to a separate tank. I have a few people that want the culls for some reason plus i am curious to see what develop. I basically have orange and black koi, no whites. The orange ones are in the majority and also the largest. There are very few koi left in the 3000l tanks. My guess is about 30 in each. Also did the first water change today. The majority of the fry are all in the region of 2.5cm but there are some that is only 7mm long.

My family helped.




The tools


From vat1, Female localbred Shiro Utsuri Takeda bloodline


From vat2, Female Imported Shiro Utsuri Omosako bloodline

15 January 2012

Thus far i have removed all koi that do not represent Shiro Utsuri and Showa and today was spent looking at deformities.

Me and my wife work through them every 2nd weekend as there are still alot of small once that are developing. The photos below are from Mazaki X Omosako spawning. My other spawning that is from local bred shiro's have alot more showa in it and tuns more deformities.

Here you can see me sorting them, if you end up in the ice cream tub your buggered. :ohmy: If you remain in the purple container you are save for 2 weeks.

Its sometimes tough to do the right thing, today i had a few that had perfect shiro utsuri patterns but the nose is too short or the mouth is deformed, they had to go to the ice cream tub unfortunately.



Unsorted and awaiting my judgement. :blink:



Some of the better once from todays drag. There are others from the same spawning that are bigger that i sorted through 2 weeks ago and moved to a grow on vat. I need more space, Arghh! Home breeding is all about quality vs quantity.

5 February 2012

I am continuing to work through the spawning every 2 weeks to try and maximize the space for the kois with potential.

Here are some images of the Shiro Utsuris. There are still one vat i need to work through, there images are not showing here yet. The shiros are changing quite a bit every week and some of the fry that i selected to grow on has changed quite dramatically from what they looked like when i selected them. Most of them lost sumi or shall i rather say the sumi has gone down as you can still see it under the skin.

Batch 1 - Mazaki female x Omosako male & Mazaki Male



The only tancho showa from the spawning...will it last?


a very strong body shape on this one.




Batch 2 - local bred shiro utsuri female takeda bloodline x Omosako male & Mazaki Male



I kept a few showas back aswell that showed some promise for the future.

Kindai showa?



Not a bad looking showa, what do you think?



I was very excited about this little critter today but only now see its got a kinked tail

2 Feb 2012

I dragged the 2nd pond today.

These where the once i kept.


Look at the white on these two. The sumi is not there yet but the white ground is very good.


Best out of the batch for today.


Here is a vid showing the two above.
https://www.facebook.com/v/10150601140042698

Can someone please tell me how to embed the video show that it does not show as a link? i tried the video button above but could not get it to work.

20 May 2012

Well i havnt done any updates for a while. I have 20 babies left. Here are some of them. Some of these will be doing their first koi show this coming weekend. What do you guys think?

Stunning Shiros Wayne

Thank you Costa, my guess is that the majority of the ones in the photos above are male and the once that are remaining in the ponds to be female because their pattern has not stabalised yet and the sumi is still developing.

I find it fascinating to observe the different types of sumi and to see how it develops. Look at photo 5 & 6 see how the sumi comes to the surface one scale at a time?

fanatastic effort Wayne......wow

Some really nice onces, love the lustre on No 5, however 6 is my favourite.

Any you would like me to grow on for you.......lol

Thanks Cliff, I think 1, 2, 3 & 7 are the best for show right now. Ofcourse i cant show them all but ill pick the best once from those.

1 one has one black fin but funny enough its pattern compliments its one black fin and it still looks balanced.

2 is just amazing but note the orange dot on the white. Only time will tell whats going to happen here.

3, Not much to say. Its perfect now. I hope its female as i would like to keep it - long term but my gut says its male.

4, is a more long term koi i would say.

5 is the one that i am watching in anticipation. I am going to track its development because it has very good quality skin. It has the most amazing thick skin and its white is like snow.

6, I think this will also be a interesting fish to track during its development to see how the sumi fills in.

7, this must be a male. Its perfect for showing now.

All the babies that i kept during the cullings showed qualities of either thick skin , white & black color quality or pattern at some point during the culling. So some are short term fish like 3 & 7 while the others are more long term but i know that they all showed me something at some point.

I will be making some available for purchase towards the end of the year if you are interested as i cant keep them all and i need to sell them to fund the purchase of a koi from a specific breeder that i want. I hope to buy via Costa from SEKKO but as i understand he is very expensive.

hoe het dit toe met jou "local bred" utsuri's ge gan

wayneb wrote:

20 May 2012

Well i havnt done any updates for a while. I have 20 babies left. Here are some of them. Some of these will be doing their first koi show this coming weekend. What do you guys think?

Hi

That looks very nice U be proud of yourself

Piet

PIET UNGERER wrote:

Hi

That looks very nice U be proud of yourself

Piet

Thank you, i am very proud.

kobus van niekerk wrote:

hoe het dit toe met jou "local bred" utsuri's ge gan

I took 1st, 2nd and 3rd in Size 1 Utsuri mono and got a nomination for supreme but in the end it did not take supreme.

1st and nomination for supreme.


2nd


3rd

Waw Wayne...they look so good...Very inspiring...
Mr Sakai had one in aquarium in his office and was selling it for Y80 000...looks a lot like yours...I got pictures from it if U want to see.

Thanks Neli, yeah show us.

I will be breeding Shiru Utsuri & Showa end of this year. Kohaku next year.

Here:




they were two in the aquarium...

That is indeed a very nice Utsuri. It looks a bit bigger than mine -very strong sumi and shiro on it.

It is very small Wayne...less than 20 cm...That is a small bucket...
Here are the Koi I bought from the show In SA...cheap ones...from the auction...
and the gin rin shiro James gave me present.

wayneb wrote:

I will be breeding Shiru Utsuri & Showa end of this year.

If you need any extra hands during the culling process don't hesitate to let me know. I'm free until january

tategoi-boi wrote:

wayneb wrote:

I will be breeding Shiru Utsuri & Showa end of this year.

If you need any extra hands during the culling process don't hesitate to let me know. I'm free until january

Hands are a good thing, but culling needs lots of expertise... I would not know how to cull, and I feel sorry for them...But I have a automatic culling system called: Newbie killing most of the fry...He he he!

wayneb wrote:

I took 1st, 2nd and 3rd in Size 1 Utsuri mono and got a nomination for supreme but in the end it did not take supreme.

Well done! , it gives one so much more pleasure winning with something you created yourself.

Hi, yes well done the young Shiro look very good. It’s always more satisfying winning with your own bred Koi that purchasing a winner.

Regards

james

Hi Wayne, can you please tell me where u bought your grow on tanks from?

Hi Wayne, can you please tell me where u bought your grow on tanks from?

I really cant remember. I had it made in 2007 at some company in Durban. You should try and buy the 2nd hand vats from the western cape koi chapter, they are selling some.

excellent drawing - your avatar.