Production
April - May <letting koi back in mud ponds>
Our raising season begins late April. We put big fish back in mud ponds so as to make room in greenhouse ponds
for spawning. We have lots of things to do before we put fish in mud ponds. We pick up things like ceder twigs
out of ponds, build feeding stages to put automatic feeders for big fish. For Tosai donds, we have to put nets
and nylon strings to keep out predetor birds. We disinfect and examine fish before letting them back in mud ponds.
May - June <Spawning season>
letting selected pairs to spawn eggs ready to hatch
In May, we prepare ponds for fry . When water is filled in mud ponds, we disinfect the whole pond. Some people
use lime, others use sodium hypochlorite. Furtilizer needs to be put in, to provide enough nutrition for water flea
and plankton to grow. It helps fry to grow strong when they can feed on those for the first week or two.
Sellecting parent koi in pairs is one of the most important factors in breeding Nishikigoi. We have to consider
many elements such as body conformation, beni quality, clear-cut kiwa, white background, etc.
June -July - August <culling season>
click on some of the images above and see how small fry are at 1st round of culling .
They don't quite look like Nishikigoi at this stage. It takes quite a lot of experience
to be able to cull fast enough to get the job done in time.
Culling is the most important part of breeding koi. Not all fry grow up to be Nishikigoi. For instance, we put 50
- 60 thousand fry in a mud pond of 1 Tan (about 1/4 of an acre), out of those, we'd get a few - several
hundred Tosai in fall. We usually cull 3 times during raising season, another at harvest, 2-3 times during winter
and select our Tategoi.
Culling starts at late June, and we cull all-day long everyday for a month and a half.
September - October - November <harvest season>
Harvest season is the most exciting season of the whole year. All the hard work comes up to this point.
Click on the thumnails above and see how proud Tsuyoshi san is. These are Nisais, see how big they are,
and check out the quality of these koi!!
Above: Some of our koi from past seasons