Round up from the weekend

It's taken 2 full weekends, and we have finally completed first selection on the May #2 spawning.

Here's a random pan net's worth of some of the keepers from one of the day's selecting:


the keepers were placed in their own tub until the end of the selection stint, and then moved to their growing on tank.
Here's a video of the keepers from the stint, and some random selections from it brought into more easy view with the pan net:


https://youtu.be/QE4TRL2gAf4



Here's some pictures of the better keepers:



The number of keepers from the first 3 weekend days worth of selecting has filled, and possibly over filled the tank with fry. So, for the final day of selecting - we upped the selection criteria and became even more picky on what we were keeping. And we are looking for a tank to grow these keepers from the last Sunday's selection - keeping them separate will take some pressure off the growing on tank where most of the keepers from this spawning will be grown; and, it will also be an interesting experiment to see the quality we are presented with at second selection if we select with much stricter selection criteria than normal. Here are some pics of the best few from the final Sunday's selection.










And some video of them in the pan net:


https://youtu.be/LYyZAXs3yLE

It's always amazing seeing how large the shooters are compared to the average fry; this one must be at least 10x the mass of the average fry - and it has a pattern. bonus!


https://youtu.be/T9uPwkuozXY

Overall, I'm happy with the May 17 #2 spawning - this is the one with the 3 step female, and my 2 matsue males. keep rate was lowish, but if the quality of any one of the 3 parent fish comes through in the fry, then this batch has the potential to deliver kohaku's better than I've bred before.

there's lots more news... the spawning last weekend went well, and we are already seeing hatchlings from that spawning. I ran with my trusty okawa female and one of the trusty dianichi boys - plus my sakai male. so, a little change from the normal dianichi males pair, and this is simply to try something a little different. it's the perfect opportunity for me to do so, after such successful spawning early in the season and also with a batch of hatchlings from shark's july 17 spawning also coming along nicely.

more on those july spawnings later.