Selecting And Culling Koi Fish

SELECTING KOI FISH --- Why good Koi Fish are so expensive? The answers because the selection process to obtain good quality of koi is very long and complicated. From thousands of fry only a few are selected to be a good koi fish. Koi that have a standard specification of good koi very rare among thousand of tosai, selected Koi is the best. Breeding Koi starting with selecting good parent of koi, spawning process, and step by step selection and culling process by time and size of koi. The selection process will result koi with variety of quality. Koi with the best quality will be expensive and be winner in koi champion.

Culling Koi Fish

After Growing On in mud pond , tank or aqurium for about three weeks, koi fry start first culling process, remove any larger fry to another tank .The the basic recipe you can follow throughout all the culling procedures are Shape Culling, Color culling and Pattern Culling. Separate Koi fry with the jumbo growth with normal growth, because koi with rapid growth likely to win in food fight. Jumbo Fry become very aggressive especially if sufficient food is not provided. In this condition koi are small in size can not grow well.

Selecting Koi Fish

The first cull happens when the fish are 1 to 2 inches in length where the unmarketable fish are removed. Koi Fry with good color will be selected, then put into grow out ponds where they will continue to grow. Koi that do not pass the selection will be removed.

After an additional 45 days, the previously selected tosai are culled again. These fry are now 3 inches long. This culling is much easier – both because the patterns are much easier to see, and because there are so many fewer individuals to look through.

In an additional 70 days age to 3 months ,Koi Fish selected based on the pattern. Tategoi with the grade A pattern selected and kept again in the pond. This potential koi (tategoi) will keep up to jumbo size and ready to contest. To optimize the growth of Tategoi usually given koi food with Hi Growth type.

Reference :

1. Akca Library