Your Koi Will Never Get Real Red Without Colour Food

[00:00:00]In today's video, not only are we going to catch up on those epic Saito kohaku, you are going to see exactly why color food is an essential tool in the armory of developing koi to the highest level.

[00:00:14]These have been the perfect test batch.

[00:00:16]And I cannot wait to show you the progress [music] since last time.

[00:00:28]>> [music] >> So, our last update on these was the 19th of April and the size was 34 to 37 cm. Now, they were the perfect case study for showing hard and soft benny, and that's what we mainly featured on that video because those fish have been fed absolutely no color food at any point during their life. Now, since that selection up until today, I pretty much started them straight away on the typical 50/50 mix of sakiari growth and color. Now, I've not been pushing the food as heavily since then. I've actually been waiting for one of the big ponds to free up where they're all going to be moved to. [music] We had a sales event where some of you lucky guys managed to get your hands on one that I'm going to be growing through to what is going to be a phenomenal Nissi at the end of the year. So, it's just been ticking away and I'm actually can't wait to see how they've actually done despite the intensity of the feeding dropping off. The stocking level pretty much halfed at that point which was very very good. And now today we're going to mainly see what the colors done. I am expecting growth. We'll see. I might be in for a very pleasant surprise. but the fish themselves. So that color food being introduced has been absolutely pivotal. What you are still going to see within these fish are the signs of that soft benny. It is a characteristic. But what you are going to see this time is that the tone has changed completely.

[00:01:59]The intensity of the reds picked up. I know that for sure. I've seen it in the pond. What you are also likely going to see is that the shroji, the white skin is nowhere near as clean as it was the last time. And that is mainly because of the introduction of the color food. Now color food itself is a vital tool for me. There is absolutely no debate as to whether color food is a uh you should or you shouldn't. From my first Japan trips, I've seen the guys there in Japan using this stuff at all different levels depending on breeder variety or whatever it is. But the general conception is you will never get co pigmentation [music] to its truest potential without the use of color food. There's a lot of factors that affect the performance of the red color. Daylight being a massive one as well. But even when you've got good lighting, without the color food, you're never going to get it exactly where it could get without the aid of the color food. So, cannot wait to see how that actually looks close up. My goodness, this is sensational. But honestly, that change, that change there in the hue of that benny, you can still see the softness, it's absolutely clear. It's all there. We'll look at that closer, but the intensity there is just on a on another level. So, just got a split now.

[00:03:23]Customers and my own fish, uh, cuz they're going to be going into different ponds. And then uh yeah, customers got a lot of good ones, but I'm uh I'm particularly excited, possibly frustrated when I see some customer ones, but excited to see what I've got for growing on as well. So, uh yeah, and when we get to moving them, we'll check in on that size and and see how well they've done.

[00:03:53][music] >> [music] >> So, they're all sorted. Now, we've got this is all my fish that's left in here that I am going to be having a sort through because the pond I have is a pond where I'm going to be raising the very best of those with the very best of my own Miss Toyota uh Tatio with the aim of producing some truly exceptional size of Nissi. And then in that in this net here, Jesus, in this net here, we've also got all the customer fish which are still looking remarkable.

[00:04:36]And the progress in that benny has just been sensational.

[00:04:44]So looking back at the journey of these ones, they actually started at 18 to 25 cm at the beginning of the grow out. And like I say, we're now at the last time two months ago, 34 to 37 cm. Now, the pond is also worth another mention. I mentioned it last time when I coined the phrase the gear and get the idea.

[00:05:04][music] That was the special one. Yet to be printed on a t-shirt, but it's coming, trust me. The system itself is one of the 1200galon ponds, brush [music] chamber, 300 L of K1, 150 L air pump driven directly into the chamber, and the spray bar return heated. That's been a massively important part of the growth process and it always is. Having control and stability of the temperature allows me to get control of the feeding.

[00:05:28]Without it, it's impossible to build that feeding as you actually need to.

[00:05:33]But like I say, the system weekly maintenance done on it, minimal water changing. That is why the water does look disgusting, don't get me wrong, but biologically it's performing so so well as you can see in the results of the [music] fish. So coming back to the bloodline, this is the new 3 years it's been used at Saitto Fish Farm, but from the Dichi Kinsen [music] bloodline is where it's been derived crossed with his own males. And we're really starting to see the performance of those genetics in these fish. A big part of this growout series has been to prove nurture versus nature because Silto Fish Farm doesn't have a lot of indoor space. he isn't able to raise [music] jumbo to size and then ultimately what that means is his nissi are then smaller because they're not as big starting as other breeders [music] and I have the the concrete pond space here to do it albeit we've been using small ponds as well which proves something completely different around stocking and system performance but nature versus nurture and as we can see already these things are getting close to where Silito's Nissi are actually at at the point of harvest. So, as they get moved to the bigger pond, today, I cannot [music] wait to see where these get. Not until the end of September will be the next harvest. Given that they're going to have almost three-folding water volume to one of my ultimate growing systems, I think the results at the end of this are going to be quite remarkable. So, we're right now at the 3 12,000galon pond. These things are going to race from this point on. This one is where the customer fish are going and the one where mine are going is just over my shoulder. But equal ponds just different uh fish arrangements for keeping it structured. But as we can see, I mean they look you the pond itself starts dwarfing the fish. That's when we know they've got this amazing length now 20 foot long pond to swim, build muscle and heaps of filtration to really power that feeding up. So just coming back to the topic of color food and how you can best use it. Now color foods are like I've said essential in getting color to its maximum potential.

[00:07:43]But how mad do you need to go and how important is the quality of the color food? Now not all color foods are made the same and the best ones you're not going to be shocked to hear command the highest prices. One little hack I can give you is that it must be made of the highest quality spirulina. What that will do is cause the pellet itself to look almost black in the best ones. If we look at Sakiari color close up, it is exactly that dark dark green almost black looking. That's because it's concentrated with high quality spirulina. And it's that that converts to the pigment cells within the fish.

[00:08:19]Now, other color foods out there won't do the same job and can actually lead to your fish looking lesser quality. You'll get enhancement, but in the wrong way.

[00:08:29]You won't actually get color development. You'll get artificial enhancement. This can be the ones that tend to come from the likes of krill meal and shrimp meal. Remember, this is the same stuff that flamingos get that pink glow from. Is that what you want in your fish? Pink glow. No, it's not. Many years ago, I used a new one that came onto the market as a trial and it absolutely tanked a phenomenal Terzo kakaku that I was raising. The shiroji took months to recover. The benny looked like it was glowing artificially. It looked horrendous. That's not what sakiari color does. This stuff is aggressive, but it tones the benny properly and it's a lasting effect. When you remove uh the krill and shrimp based color enhancers, it doesn't leave enhanced color. It quickly fades away.

[00:09:12]With the right color enhancers like saki, it absolutely stays there and looks superb. Now, with most of them, you will tint the white skin slightly.

[00:09:22]In my experience with saki color, it's not as aggressive, but in the cases of some others, it can really damage the [music] the white skin and take a long time to pull it back. With sakiari, I tend to find that within a couple of weeks, any effect it's having can be reversed and pull that shogi [music] right back in line. As for how I feed it, that really depends on the circumstances. But what I'm going to tell you is for you guys in a mixed pond, the best way is to keep a small level all through your summer growth. So around 25% mixed in with your regular diet. It's just going to give you that background support. And as the fish grow and everything stretches, you've got something there just pushing that color up nicely. And then in the autumn, if you wanted to, you could go a little bit more aggressive with it as you then move into winter and come away because you do need the water to be a little bit warmer while you use it. So that's my tip. I'm not having it any other way. Anybody who says color food is cheating or not necessary is talking shy and I would question their koi keeping experience and credentials 100%. So, it's nice to see them finally in some clear water right next to the pond that they're going to be heading into. 20 fish out of that batch. I don't know how many there was for me to select through, but there's 20 going in. I'm recording all the sizes into the system. So, we've got them from when we originally documented them and then we've got a record of them from today. It's also a nice use of our new system to help to track more data uh as we're growing the fish through to actually see the results. We've also got those early pictures of them uh record shots to see exactly how well they've done. But in this clear water, you can really see just how the color differs now from that orangey hue to the red hue. But the softness is still there for all to see because it's a fundamental quality of the bloodline.

[00:11:15]Cannot wait to see these progress through to the end of September. So there we go. What an absolutely epic result. Once again, you've seen now over the course of this series, and the links are in the description to all of it.

[00:11:30]You've seen hard and soft benny. We've seen how color foods actually work by comparing side by side what they looked like from the last time to this time and exactly where they're at now as they move into their 3 and 1 half th000galon pond waiting to the end of September.

[00:11:45]And this is likely going to be the last part until then because these have been so heavily selected the quality levels so consistently high. I don't see anything being removed at that point.

[00:11:56]That is one advantage to growing jumbo toai. we get to see a lot more a lot earlier so that when the fish are released, they don't actually need faffing around with [music] as much. So, I hope you've enjoyed it and we'll see you at the next one, whenever that's going to be.

[00:12:11][music] Hey, hey, hey.