New hatchlings :-)

A brief update on stuff.

After a massive fertilisation rate, which you can see in these pics of the eggs well into their development. Hardly a white one in sight..

the hatch though has been a little underwhelming. We have hatchlings in each of the tanks we are rearing eggs… but, not the massive schools of hatchlings we’ve seen in our best spawning performances. Even at day 6 or 7...

we're still seeing more hatchlings each day, so overall, a good result.

I’m pretty sure that there will be enough across all 3 batches to fully populate one of the fry ponds. If we’re lucky, there may be sufficient to fully populate both.

The plan now is to rear these hatchlings as best we can, and to run another spawning this weekend - in an effort to achieve another batch of hatchlings from a different brood set. If we succeed, then there will be a little more intelligence gathered on our brood fish combo's.

Finally, we've started to think about which koi to take to the South of England show, coming up in a few weeks.

This size one kohaku is possibly my best bet...

Unfortunately, it's knocked 3 scales on it's left flank and we will not be able to show it!!!!! Completely gutted.

We have other options, but I was really looking forward to giving this one an outing. I've been tracking it since it was a few cm's long...

It will repair in time for the All England show, I'm sure... It's going to be a long 3 month wait, and the competition at that show is so intense.... and, you can't be sure it will be looking as good in a few months time. we will have to wait and see.

And that just demonstrates how incredibly difficult it is to show koi. Having the best ones in the best condition on a specific day doesn't always go to plan.