Mid-Season at Byer Koi Farm: Spawnings, Stock & Summer Plans

We’ve hit one of the busiest points in the koi calendar. Right now, we’re in the middle of multiple spawnings, rearing fry, growing on tosai to nisai, and quarantining new imports from Japan. On top of that, customer visits are up on last year, which is always great to see as more people discover what we’re all about here at Byer Koi Farm.

The start of this week has been a full suite of husbandry work—filter cleans, scrapes, water tests, and the usual health checks that set the rhythm for each week. We’re also joined by a familiar face: Gemma, a veterinary student now in her second year at university, who first came to us on work experience during her A-levels. It’s brilliant to have her back helping out during one of the busiest periods of the year.

We’re progressing into our second round of spawnings this week, and I’ll share a full variety list once we’ve completed this batch and have a clearer picture of how things have gone. Each week we seem to just about fit in the key husbandry, site maintenance and—if we’re lucky—one strategic task, whether that’s managing fry ponds, setting up for spawnings, or preparing an online release.

Speaking of which, last week saw the release of our Sekiguchi Showa tosai online. This week, it’s back to spawnings—but we’re also preparing to release more koi, including a batch of large tosai butterfly koi and some standout Shinoda Hi Utsuri.

These new koi will be available on-site only this weekend at our koi shop (open Saturday and Sunday, 10am–5pm - see 'visit us' for more details).

We've had a number of enquiries via social media asking to see specific koi in more detail. Unfortunately, with so much going on this week, we simply don’t have time to shoot and edit detailed footage—so if you’re keen, the best thing to do is pop down to the farm and see them in person. We’ll look to make these koi available online next week, once we've landed our second round of spawnings.

Looking ahead, we’ve got plenty more coming through for the rest of the season. We’ve been doing something a bit different this year by rearing a range of koi for a mid-season release, rather than holding everything back for autumn. That’s in addition to our ake nisai, which are staying here all summer and will be harvested and released at the end of the season.

What this means for you is more regular harvests and koi releases from now through to the end of summer, followed by our main nisai harvest in the autumn.

We’ve also brought in additional tosai from several trusted Japanese farms—hand-selected from their final tosai picks. Most of these koi have already landed and are now in quarantine, with a few more shipments arriving next week. After a two-month quarantine period, we’ll be releasing a wide range of Kujaku, Shiro Utsuri, Go Sanke, Ginrin Go Sanke, Goshiki, and Doitsu Shiro Utsuri. These imported koi will nicely complement our own bred stock and allow us to continue offering an extensive and exciting selection across all varieties and price points.

Across the summer we'll be completing our spawnings and harvesting fry and new small koi mixes.  This year's spawnings have started well, and are on track to deliver another great range of fry, small koi mixes this season, and looking ahead to spring 2026, more great tosai too.

And looking to this autumn,  I’ll be heading back to Japan in early November for the peak of the Niigata autumn harvest season. I’ll be on the lookout for special nisai and sansai in varieties we don’t breed here—those koi will be available over winter once they’ve completed quarantine.

As ever, we’re fully committed to bringing you a wide range of high-quality koi—across all varieties, sizes, and budgets—for hobbyists who truly care about what goes into their pond.

Thanks for following along and supporting what we do.