Case Study #8 - The home bred kohaku that won my first Young Champion award

This case study is of a kohaku spawned in May 2014, which has gone on to perform really well at my club's garden show this year (2015), scooping my first Young Champion award with a home bred koi, at Kangei Koi Club's 2015 Garden show. The show is a Garden Show format, and is a closed show - so, only members of the club can enter. It beat 67 koi to achieve it's award.

We'll review it's history in photos and video.


This first photo was taken on 18th July 2014, and shows the koi at second selection. It stood out as being one of the largest in the spawning, even at this early stage



This photo was taken on 8th August 2014


27th September 2014 - kiwa looking ropey... but the worry at the time turned out to be unfounded, and over the next few months, the kiwa neatened up nicely


15th November 2014


1st Jan 2015

7th Feb 2015

And here's a video of it in early Feb, when it measured 38cm. That's quite some growth considering it's only 10 months old at this point.

video link


2nd April 2015 - this is where I was starting to get excited about the body shape; with the shoulder area filling out and the skin was looking good at this stage


9th May 2015 - the overall condition of the koi is down at this time; you can see the skin is yellowy. I was a little worried, because around this time I was able to sex the koi as male - and I thought the yellowing of the skin might be part of it's development as a male.

Thankfully, by the time of the benching for the Garden Show, the koi was in it's best condition since April; the skin quality was back, as was the body shape. And fortuately, this is when the benching occured. perfect timing!


This is the picture taken by the benching team in early September 2015.


I took this koi to the All England show, on 27th September 2015 and it was benched at 49cm. It didnt place in size 4 kohaku; and I drew a blank at the show across my whole vat. But felt proud to have put out a vat with solely home bred koi and happy with their development up to this point.

At the time of writing, we're just before Christmas 2015. And this koi is benefiting from a spot in my growing on tanks where it will stay until next spring. I measured it last weekend at a few mm's short of 56cm.