Fry Cull No2

Well the start of the week went well.

We decided it was time to go through the fry again for more grading.

We set out to drag the net through the mud pond again to catch all the koi ready for selection.

Once we caught all the koi into the sein net we then transfered the fish into a small holding tank ready for selection.

When we where moving the fish over we where pleased with the results as a majority of the fish we selected from the first cull had grown on superb.

Heres a small amount of some of the baby koi whilst they where being moved to another tank and in just these very few koi there is some absolute crackers.

Once into the 3 retaining nets we then started grading the koi. 50% of the koi have been returned to the mud pond for growing on and the other 50% are on sale in store now.

If you read about the other baby fry in the previous post they are coming on really well also that would be an interesting mix to see what comes out. Where hoping for a good range of chagoi in them.



More Progress On Baby Koi

Below is a link to a short clip of the baby fry feeding on Aquamaster Growth feed soaked in water.

I would embed the video onto here but for some reason i cant so clicking to the link below will direct you to the video on Youtube.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htMz8Nl7zEo&feature=mh_lolz&list=HL1310487780

Big Day for Holmeswood Koi

Well it was an early start today at Holmeswood Koi and what a big day its been so far.

Today we planned out to net the baby fry what hatched just over 6 weeks ago.

We have been told it isnt possible to produce so many quality Koi in England.

So we set out to prove everyone wrong its been done before and now we have done it aswell with magnificent results !

This one picture alone explains alot. The fry are around 1" long and in total we roughly think there is around 40-50 thousand fish in total.

If you look here at all the fish we caught from the first drag with the net.

All the fry have come from the Matsunosuke bloodline. 1 large female Matsunosuke Kohaku, 1 large female Matsunosuke Tancho Sanke and 3 male Matsunosuke Kohaku's.

Once we netted all the fry out the mud pond we then put them into a number of retainer nets in one of the quarantine systems ready for selection.

Then the selection began, Barry started selecting through the fry and seperating the best ones from the lot and removing any deformed fry. And hes still on with it now.

You can already see at just 6 weeks old that the Fry are looking magnificent.

Well thats all the pictures for today but there will be more to come as we have more fry what hatched 3 days ago

Keep checking the blog and website for updates.

We are also very happy to say that Holmeswood Koi is now a working Koi Farm in the North West of England.

Pond Rebuild

Last week we where out rebuilding a pond in Formby, and the finished product looks brill. Shame it was raining when we planted it up this morning though. Typical english weather !

Heres what it looked like when Scott & Barry went to clear it out.

Then it was time to empty it, and what a job that was there was that many Marginal plants in there was only about 5 gallons of water in there.

We then realised the PVC liner had gone very brittle so we set out to completely rebuild the pond.

We then used Greenseal EPDM Rubber liner, along with fitting an Oase Filtoclear 20,000 Filter along with an Oase Aquamax Pump and an Oase Aquarius Fountain Pump.

We also did away with the old liner underneath the Slate water feature and installed a new plastic basin and a Hozelock Cascade Pump.

And theres the finished product!



Holmeswood Koi Guided Tour

Underwater View of some of the Koi

New Fish House

The new Goldfish House is coming together very nicely and quickly. Dave has been working his socks of to make all the free standing tanks and build a nice wooden frame around them to make it look all neat and tidy.
Hes plumbing them in using Oase Filtoclear filters and Oase Aquamax Dry pumps.
Heres a few images to show you the progress.

Holmeswood Koi Spring Tosai Shipment from Japan

Here is a quick clip of the Tosai from Japan settling in nicely on there second day here.

Spring Shipment Arrived

All went well tonight, we managed to get to Heathrow Airport on time to collect the fish and got them back and into quarantine. All the tosai traveled really well and we are really pleased with all 1200 fish that came.
Heres a few pictures to show what we got,

Not the greatest quality of pictures, but i only had my phone on me but ill have some more taken later today with a proper camera and will upload them to show you. We can definatly say we have plenty of stock for this season ahead. Another 6-8 weeks of quarantine and they will be out on sale.