Spawning and feeding

Over the last few of days I've partaken in a couple of internet discussion threads, 1 about feeding regimes in mud ponds, the other about late season spawnings.

A couple of conversations today shed a little light on both subjects which I'll share.

Firstly, late season spawnings.  Over the weekend I noticed that spawning had taken place at Marudo as racks of ropes with eggs were in a show vat outside the premises.  This afternoon I caught up with Manabu Yamazaki of Yamazaki Koi Farm, he was in the middle of carrying out the first sembetsu of some Kohaku.  During the conversation the subject of late spawning came up.  Apparently they are due to start some more spawnings this week, which is normal for them.  As culling is undertaken, if it becomes apparent that some parents have underperformed, fry will be merged together to free up pond space and other parents spawned hoping for better results.  He also stated that where all previous spawnings had been undertaken artificially, these parents would be allowed to spawn naturally.

I stopped by Maruju this afternoon where they were busy with the first sembetsu of Goshiki.  There round of 1st sembetsu is just getting underway, already they've completed Sanke, tomorrow they'll complete Goshiki.  More of that in another post.  Late afternoon Shigeyoshi was off to do the rounds of some of the mud ponds and whilst I was really enjoying the culling I took up his offer to go for the drive.

All of the Maruju mud ponds have automatic feeders on them.  Whilst some needed topping up with food, the main purpose of Shigeyoshi's visits to the ponds was to check on the condition of the Koi and adjust their feeding accordingly. 

The first pond we stopped at contained nisai Tancho Kohaku and Tancho Goshiki.  A little food was thrown in by hand to guage their reaction.  At present they were getting 3 feeds per day.  Shigeyoshi explained that they aren't pushing them to get big and as nisai that's all they needed.  Other Koi that are older may get 5 or 6 feeds per day.

The Koi below are some that were seen being released in the video of Maruju's Koi returning from Saitama which can now be seen on NTV - http://www.nishikigoi.tv/ntv_2009.html.  Koi swarming around the feeder a sure sign they are in good condition.

The Koi below are nisai Goshiki, they were the most active of all the Koi we visited.

The pellets being fed are sinking ones, the Koi were almost out of the water trying to catch them as they landed.  I have to say that I look forward to seeing these harvested in the autumn there are some cracking looking Goshiki amongst them.

You may recall seeing this device below on my blog last year.  They are used on fish farms elsewhere in Asia and Maruju had one on trial.  It was actually subject of a long article in one of the Japanese Koi magazines over the last 12 months.  They were so impressed with it's performance last year that they have another 3 this year.  If the vigour of these Goshiki was anything to go by then it's certainly effective.

On most of the ponds we visited today adjustments were made to the autofeeders.  In most cases this was an increase in the duration of each feed, usually from 1min to 70 seconds.

One question that is often asked is 'what food do the breeders use?'. Something I've noticed this year that I didn't last year is that Saki Hikari is being used an awful lot.  Indeed, we topped up several feeders with Saki Hikari Basic today.