A week in the life of a koi farmer (wc 17_4_24)
The work we did today is something I've been looking forward to for a few months. It's turnaround time in our bridge tank. This is the largest of our growing on tanks where we rear over half of our tosai to nisai and this year, finally... we have been able to hold on to a contingent of nisai that we are taking to sansai.
Today, we cleared out the bridge tank, and put in all the ake nisai from our '23 Yamabuki, Ai Goromo and Aragoke spawnings. It's a satisfying moment to see them swim off into the much larger tank than their tosai surroundings offered them. And, also gave us a rare chance to review all the previous inhabitants..... many of which have been reintroduced to spend their third summer here and provide us with a sansai harvest!
We've also used the bridge tank to house various brood fish over the last 9 months or so, and it's been great to get reacquainted with them and move them across to their respective brood fish ponds.
We completed most of the work today, with a bit more to follow through on which will probably fall to Thursday or Friday now as tomorrow we have a big shipping day.
What I can tell you is that, our contingent of Showa from the penultimate MGS spawning and the final LMC spawning... are looking really good.
For now, here are a few pictures of a 'girl powered' day, with both our daughters helping Amanda and I with the netting and moving of koi.
Our tactic catching koi in this very large pond, is to narrow the area for the koi with a seine net then pan net each koi out, 1 by 1.
job done! now we're ready to review all of the koi
The nisai Mukashi's from our Opaline line are looking sublime! We have around 10 that we're taking to sansai and I'd expect them to be around the 60cm mark at that point. The bodies are immense! And I'm equally happy with their lustre.
The Asagi's too are looking brilliant, and these were a late season spawning the previous year and need the extra summer to put on some length. Quality wise, it's all there ! We're learning the different styles within our line and you can see examples of each , in the picture above.
Here's a close up of one type that is really pleasing when the matsuba develops in this way:
this one is slightly different, but also really good.
The Showa's etc will need to wait for another day. We also have a fantastic sansai Aragoke from the very first spawning which generated those types - and that is also going to be pictured another day.
For now though, a sansai Doitsu Ochiba from that '21 spawning. A male, that we will be using here to try and replicate the linear pattern style, and also presenting the great Karashigoi body lines present in it's mum - something else we are looking to enhance our Doitsu Ochiba line with.
Ok, a sneaky peak of one of the Showa's we've been growing on from the batch that appeared in the World of Nishikigoi vol1 and 2:
It's a screen grab from video, and I'll follow up with some much better footage of this Showa and the others from those articles.
A hugely satisfying end to the day was had when we released our ake nisai Yamabuki's and several other of our '23 spawnings into the bridge tank for growing this summer. The next time this tank will be netted, will be for the autumn harvest, scheduled for September.
