Koi growing on to nissai - part 1

This Easter, I treated myself to 2 full weeks off work.... It's been a while since we last had that length of break and we had a great time, and fit in lots of koi jobs.

On 4th April we selected through the tank holding the larger growers from our May, June and July 16 spawnings - and we took pictures (using a DSLR, with mounted flash) and measurements of the ones we decided to keep.

The following pictures and measurements are from the day we selected. The tank we reviewed contained koi from three separate spawnings. You'll remember from previous blog entries that we split the koi from those three spawnings into two tanks roughly half way through the growing on season - based on size / growth potential.

To give us a little clarity on these fish for their next development stages, I've reviewed the pictures and video of blog entries from a few months ago to so that I can identify which spawning each of the keepers came from - and have listed the koi based on spawning.

From June 16 spawning (these koi are just under 10 months old)

29cm

28.5cm - the tancho's are tough to identify from the early spawning pictures, but I think this one comes from the Jun 16 spawning.
35cm (we named this the 'sunshine' koi)
:-)
34.5cm (this one's been profiled a few times over the last 6 months)

33.5cm. This fish has features on the blog before - early on, I identified this one as being one of the best two in terms of skin / shininess. problem with this one is the pattern is one sided. and, as it's getting larger, that imbalance is growing. I'm just not ready to let a fish as white as this one go just yet. plus, I'm interested to see how the body develops - it's a little taller than some of the longer, thinner ones.

this picture shows the pattern imbalance fairly well. the red marking on it's left hand side is just a little too low - and not quite large enough :-(



From May 16 spawning (these koi are 11 months old)


29cm

35cm. this is one of the best, if not the best grower from the may 16 spawning and has the body shape type that I recognise from just two koi from the previous year's batch - a strong body that I think will continue to grow well. the pattern is heavy, but it doesn't wrap all the way around the body - and the white dorsal provides a respite from all the red along the back, so we're giving this one another summer.