The build up to our 2018 spawning season continues…
The females tank now has, just females in it. Almost solely our brood females. Spawning could be as soon as just 3 weeks time, and my main focus for this tank is to have those females in tip top condition for their big moment. That means, keeping the tank clean. Good food, and plenty of water changes.
Amanda and I are already thinking of spawning combinations. Which female we lead with will depend on who’s ready on the first weekend we start our spawnings. Sharkey is our preferred lead – although, and I’ll probably run her with our dianichi males pairing. A re run of the classic June 2016 spawning that produced fish like the ‘marmite’ kohaku, ‘map of england’ and several others that are really special. For ‘Rosie’, we’ll stick with our matsue males pairing and the female I’ve been calling our ‘new momotaro’ female, we’ve now named, ‘Lava Rosa’. We paired her with the dianichi males last year and this year I want to try her with an alternative set, which is the matsue males pairing.
Over the Easter period, I selected through 2 of our growing on systems – thinning out the tosai we continue to grow on and we now have the final contingent in place that we’ll grow right through to the end of May… perhaps even the beginning of June.
 |
| We've been growing on some benigoi from the spawning of 'Lava Rosa' last May. These seem to be drawing a lot of attention, and we still have around 20 or so perfectly clean ones. The picture shows a few of them, with the largest of these being in the early 30's cm. I'll be harvesting the rectangular tank which these benigoi are currently residing in, around mid May - and that's when we'll have our final tosai measure up. |
 |
| These 3 are among my favourite kohaku tosai, still growing on. the 3 step in the foreground is from 'Lava Rosa's' May '17 spawning; the smallest one is another 'marmite' style , and is from 'Rosie's' May 17 spawning. |
 |
| These are amongst the best ones from 'Rosie's' May 17 spawning - in the mid sizes. |
I also moved some tosai between tanks – again, to spread out the stocking densities.
The late summer ’17 spawning are finally showing some decent growth and there are some really good prospects amongst that spawning. The only reason I’ve left them in their own tank this long, is because I adjusted the males combination slightly for that spawning , and I need them to be a little larger before I can get a sense of the results. Selecting through this tank to thin them out further is now a pressing job. There are a few in there with great potential and I want to get a closer look! That's the plan for this weekend.
