Hectic...
Nisai and up harvests started on the 10th of October and its been busy since then. For a while I was balancing two jobs, working at Marudo harvesting and helping customers. Then whenever I could get free time it was spent going around buying koi with my dad & customers, whom I met up with down in Tokyo. We caught the last train up to Nagaoka out of Tokyo after seeing ZED, the Cirque Du Soleil show at Tokyo Disneyland. It was an amazing show and I recommend it to anyone, a lot for your eyes to take in.
Dad stayed for about 2 weeks but once he headed home I had to schedule a ship date, and coordinate the shipment for all the koi we purchased. That was all done at night though cause the days were spent harvesting ponds at Marudo. Everyday many customers were coming to Marudo too, so a lot of the days were spent helping pull up koi for them to view and purchase. Most of the customers came between the 15th of October to around the first week of November. Some are still trickling in here and there, but nothing like the October rush when people were having to wait turns to pick out koi.
Towards the beginning of November the shipments started going out in full force, sometimes we were packing morning and night. A few days we had 3 to 4 separate shipments going out. Whilst this was all going on we've been preparing for winter, and finishing up the last of the ponds to be harvested. The oyagoi were the last koi to be harvested, with all the koi indoor for the winter we drained all the mud ponds completely. After letting them dry for a couple days we spread lime to condition the mud for next year and plugged all the drains and set the stand pipes. From now until spring the ponds will collect rain water and snow melt so they will be full and ready come next spring when we release koi out into them once again. Among other work in preparation for winter we put up poly insulation around the tosai tanks to help cut down on heating costs in the winter. Cleaned all the auto-feeders and put away the ones we won't use during the winter. Along with consolidating koi as tanks open up with koi being shipped out.
I'll be heading to the Philippines for Christmas and to take part in The Art of Koi, being put on by Kois & Ponds and Tomigai koi food.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, October 05, 2009
Devin's Pond
Harvest
The days are getting shorter and the nights cooler as we are entering fall, so it was time to harvest my pond. Without warm water the outdoor growing season is coming to a close, so there is no point in leaving the fish out while they could be growing at a faster rate in an indoor controlled environment. I set up a 500 liter tank with built in trickle filter to house my kohaku for the winter in preparation for the harvest. With everything ready and in place I pulled my pond on the 4th of October, four weeks since the last (3rd) cull on the 6th of September.
While I was in Minnesota for the koi show my pond had a bloom of hair algae, so instead of dragging a seine net to catch the fish; I decided to drain the pond down. Also, because there was under 100 fish left over from the last cull, it would be less work just to drain the water out. Once it was down to about 10 cm of water depth I plugged the drain and caught as many of the koi that could be easily netted. Then I proceeded to drain the pond completely, catching the left over fish as the water ran out.
In total there was 81 koi, so somewhere in the four weeks since the last cull one of the fish disappeared. In the final pond side cull I threw out 26 fish that didn't turn out so well, or look like they had any potential to get better. Bringing the total down to 55 fish, with 12 of them being somewhat good and 3 of them fairly good. They ranged in size from 10 to 15 cm in length, had the water not gone bad with hair algae bloom; I would have expected them to have reached 15 to 20 cm in length.
My pond was the last of all the tosai ponds to be harvested this year. I thought I would have pulled it much earlier, but we have just been so busy that I never had any free time to do it. 55 fish is quite a bit for a 500 liter tank, but as the year goes on I'll continue to cull down the kohaku. By next spring I hope to grow them out to around 30+ cm, so the ones the aren't turning out will have to go to make room for the others.
Mark Gardener has been following the development of my kohaku, his blog and eMagazine Niigata Nishikigoi Digest, it can be viewed at www.niigata-nishikigoi.com
The days are getting shorter and the nights cooler as we are entering fall, so it was time to harvest my pond. Without warm water the outdoor growing season is coming to a close, so there is no point in leaving the fish out while they could be growing at a faster rate in an indoor controlled environment. I set up a 500 liter tank with built in trickle filter to house my kohaku for the winter in preparation for the harvest. With everything ready and in place I pulled my pond on the 4th of October, four weeks since the last (3rd) cull on the 6th of September.
While I was in Minnesota for the koi show my pond had a bloom of hair algae, so instead of dragging a seine net to catch the fish; I decided to drain the pond down. Also, because there was under 100 fish left over from the last cull, it would be less work just to drain the water out. Once it was down to about 10 cm of water depth I plugged the drain and caught as many of the koi that could be easily netted. Then I proceeded to drain the pond completely, catching the left over fish as the water ran out.
In total there was 81 koi, so somewhere in the four weeks since the last cull one of the fish disappeared. In the final pond side cull I threw out 26 fish that didn't turn out so well, or look like they had any potential to get better. Bringing the total down to 55 fish, with 12 of them being somewhat good and 3 of them fairly good. They ranged in size from 10 to 15 cm in length, had the water not gone bad with hair algae bloom; I would have expected them to have reached 15 to 20 cm in length.
My pond was the last of all the tosai ponds to be harvested this year. I thought I would have pulled it much earlier, but we have just been so busy that I never had any free time to do it. 55 fish is quite a bit for a 500 liter tank, but as the year goes on I'll continue to cull down the kohaku. By next spring I hope to grow them out to around 30+ cm, so the ones the aren't turning out will have to go to make room for the others.
Mark Gardener has been following the development of my kohaku, his blog and eMagazine Niigata Nishikigoi Digest, it can be viewed at www.niigata-nishikigoi.com
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Life (aka work) as of Lately
My body can't really decide on what time zone it wants to operate on. I've been getting tired and waking up at weird hours. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I really only got about one nights rest spread out over 5 days while I was in Minnesota for the UMKC's Third annual koi show. Which by the way was quite a fun show, for various reasons...
Back in Japan however, we have started the harvesting of tosai. So everyday consists of going to the ponds we are pulling that day to seine them 3 times to catch as many of the koi we can. Then a final cull and sorting of tategoi and fish we'll sell will take place. Lastly we completely drain the pond(s) to catch any of the koi that avoided being caught by the seine net. We're averaging about 4 ponds a day.
Once all the ponds we are harvesting for that day are culled and sorted or we run out of box nets to put the koi in after we seine, we'll load them into a transport tank on one of the trucks. Sanbusho is the designated tosai house, so we'll unload all of the tosai there. Sanbusho is made up of 5 seperate houses in one area. There is a vinyl house with 6 tanks, and then there is houses A through D clustered together. House A has 7 tanks, B has 5, C has 4, and D also has 4 tanks. At the main entrance in House D there is also 2 small tanks we use to prep tosai for shipping. The vinyl house is where all the tategoi are kept throughout the winter, and the rest of the houses is where we will store the fish that are for sale. While unloading the sale able tosai we'll usually separate them by size.
With a little over 50 tosai ponds and only 12 ponds into the harvest it looks like we'll be pulling ponds up till about the end of this month. Once we are finished pulling the tosai ponds, work will start on prepping for the big fish harvest. Which usually starts around the 15th of October, we've got some busy days ahead of us.
Back in Japan however, we have started the harvesting of tosai. So everyday consists of going to the ponds we are pulling that day to seine them 3 times to catch as many of the koi we can. Then a final cull and sorting of tategoi and fish we'll sell will take place. Lastly we completely drain the pond(s) to catch any of the koi that avoided being caught by the seine net. We're averaging about 4 ponds a day.
Once all the ponds we are harvesting for that day are culled and sorted or we run out of box nets to put the koi in after we seine, we'll load them into a transport tank on one of the trucks. Sanbusho is the designated tosai house, so we'll unload all of the tosai there. Sanbusho is made up of 5 seperate houses in one area. There is a vinyl house with 6 tanks, and then there is houses A through D clustered together. House A has 7 tanks, B has 5, C has 4, and D also has 4 tanks. At the main entrance in House D there is also 2 small tanks we use to prep tosai for shipping. The vinyl house is where all the tategoi are kept throughout the winter, and the rest of the houses is where we will store the fish that are for sale. While unloading the sale able tosai we'll usually separate them by size.
With a little over 50 tosai ponds and only 12 ponds into the harvest it looks like we'll be pulling ponds up till about the end of this month. Once we are finished pulling the tosai ponds, work will start on prepping for the big fish harvest. Which usually starts around the 15th of October, we've got some busy days ahead of us.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Devin's Pond
Second & Third Cull
The second cull on my kohakus' was undertaken on the 30th of August. After receiving help pulling the seine net from the Boss, I set about culling. This time was nothing like the last, many of the fry didn't turn out well, so a lot of them were thrown away. I started out with the 1,800 selected in the last cull, and culled down to 105 fish With about 13 of them having any chance of turning out alright. The fry were about 4-6 cm at the time of culling, and quite of few of them had deformed heads. I'd figured there would have been around 300 koi picked out if they would have developed well, but I culled strictly, so that might be a factor.
The third cull took place just a week after the second cull, on the 6th of September. Ideally I would have wanted a wait a couple extra days to cull. Since it is starting to cool down and the growing season is coming to an end, I opted to hurry up and do a third cull to open up more room for keepers to grow out. I selected 82 fish to keep out of the previous 105, there was a lot of Aka & Shiro Muji thrown away. I believe they must have escaped the net last time I pulled the pond because it didn't look like any of the fry really lost their hi at all. This time around there was 16 koi I believe have a chance at developing well, all within the 6-10 cm range. There was a couple fish I didn't recognize, so its possible they were missed by the seine net in the previous pull too. Soon the tosai harvest will start and all them will be moved indoors for the winter. I think around the 20th or so of the month I'll be harvesting my fry. At that time I will be doing a final cull before they're moved to their own tank for the winter.
Mark Gardener has been following the development of my kohaku, the second cull is featured in the first issue of his new eMagazine Niigata Nishikigoi Digest, it can be viewed at www.niigata-nishikigoi.com
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Ojiya Festival
Summer time in Japan is packed full of festivals, from small towns to big cities. Niigata prefecture is famous for its firework displays at their festivals. Nagaoka is said to have one of the best displays in all of Japan, possibly even the world. Kashiwazaki also has an impressive display. Katakai shoots off the worlds largest firework every year at their festival, its a 1 meter diameter shell; and it makes the ground shake when it goes off. Ojiya also shoots off fireworks at their festival, but nothing like the other cities. Something special that Ojiya has is the parade where groups of people from the different areas of Ojiya make their own Mando. A Mando is kind of like a float in an American parade, but usually it is some kind of character.
Around the first of August, I had been helping build the Mando for Higashi Yama along with many of the residents of the area including Marusaka's son Teruyuki & Izumiya's son Ryu. Work had already started on the Mando before I showed up to help, and many long nights were put in to get it finished up in time for the festival on the 22nd & 23rd of the month. Higashi Yama's Mando was a giant blue dog, I think it is the mascot for Niigata News. It lit up and had movable arms and a rotating head, all controllable from beneath the platform it sat on. It was affixed to a 2 ton truck fitted with speakers, a small tv (where Billy's Boot Camp was played on a loop), along with parady paintings on the side, and last but not least lots of alcohol!
Along with the Mando-sha (Mando truck) there was also a Hayashi. The Hayashi was a 4 ton truck with a roof and lanterns set up on it for the festival. On the Hayashi drums and seats were set up so we could play traditional Festival music with Japanese recorders, taiko drums and a small bell. As with the Mando-sha, it was also fitted with enough alcoholic beverages to drown a donkey.
I rode on the Hayashi and was assigned to play a drum on the first night, even though I had no idea what to do. They said to just guess and go along with the flow. This was on Saturday, so it was during the fireworks display, so the Mando parade wasn't the main attraction of the night. On Sunday night the Mando was one of the main attractions though, so a lot of us got dressed up in different costumes ranging from Dragon Ball Z characters to Japanese comedians. I donned white body tights suit painted my face yellow and wore a lemon over my head, mimicking a Japanese comedian.
It is tradition to chug bottles of sake all together, so lots of alcohol was consumed. I remember Saturday night for the most part, but I blacked out on Sunday. Monday morning I woke up with one shoe, and a newly decorated body. I did find my shoe later when I was driving home though.
As if we didn't drink enough at the festival, we just had the Otsukarasama (thanks for all the hard work) drinking party last night...
I need to go cull my pond now.
Around the first of August, I had been helping build the Mando for Higashi Yama along with many of the residents of the area including Marusaka's son Teruyuki & Izumiya's son Ryu. Work had already started on the Mando before I showed up to help, and many long nights were put in to get it finished up in time for the festival on the 22nd & 23rd of the month. Higashi Yama's Mando was a giant blue dog, I think it is the mascot for Niigata News. It lit up and had movable arms and a rotating head, all controllable from beneath the platform it sat on. It was affixed to a 2 ton truck fitted with speakers, a small tv (where Billy's Boot Camp was played on a loop), along with parady paintings on the side, and last but not least lots of alcohol!
Along with the Mando-sha (Mando truck) there was also a Hayashi. The Hayashi was a 4 ton truck with a roof and lanterns set up on it for the festival. On the Hayashi drums and seats were set up so we could play traditional Festival music with Japanese recorders, taiko drums and a small bell. As with the Mando-sha, it was also fitted with enough alcoholic beverages to drown a donkey.
I rode on the Hayashi and was assigned to play a drum on the first night, even though I had no idea what to do. They said to just guess and go along with the flow. This was on Saturday, so it was during the fireworks display, so the Mando parade wasn't the main attraction of the night. On Sunday night the Mando was one of the main attractions though, so a lot of us got dressed up in different costumes ranging from Dragon Ball Z characters to Japanese comedians. I donned white body tights suit painted my face yellow and wore a lemon over my head, mimicking a Japanese comedian.
It is tradition to chug bottles of sake all together, so lots of alcohol was consumed. I remember Saturday night for the most part, but I blacked out on Sunday. Monday morning I woke up with one shoe, and a newly decorated body. I did find my shoe later when I was driving home though.
As if we didn't drink enough at the festival, we just had the Otsukarasama (thanks for all the hard work) drinking party last night...
I need to go cull my pond now.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Devin's Pond
First Cull
I did the first cull on the 14th of the month, just 18 days after releasing my kohaku fry. I may have culled a little too early, but for the most part you could make out patterns on the fry. It worked out better to do it on the 14th because it was the first day of a 3 day break for Marudo due to the national Obon holiday. Any of the days after and an impeading hangover from the drinking to be had might have interfered with the quality of culling!
Most of the fry were between 2-3 cm in size, and there was a lot of step patterns in the lot. We recently culled another pond of kohaku fry from the same Oyagoi set and step patterns seemed to be prominent in them too. So it will be interesting too see how they turn out. I culled down to 1,800 fry from 15,000, its kind of a lot for the size of my pond; but they'll soon be culled again. Many were kept because they were too small and the pattern hadn't quite emerged on them, but now with less fish in the pond they'll have room to develop and grow.
Mark Gardener came by to help cull and shoot a video of the day, his video and blog can be viewed at www.niigata-nishikigoi.com
I did the first cull on the 14th of the month, just 18 days after releasing my kohaku fry. I may have culled a little too early, but for the most part you could make out patterns on the fry. It worked out better to do it on the 14th because it was the first day of a 3 day break for Marudo due to the national Obon holiday. Any of the days after and an impeading hangover from the drinking to be had might have interfered with the quality of culling!
Most of the fry were between 2-3 cm in size, and there was a lot of step patterns in the lot. We recently culled another pond of kohaku fry from the same Oyagoi set and step patterns seemed to be prominent in them too. So it will be interesting too see how they turn out. I culled down to 1,800 fry from 15,000, its kind of a lot for the size of my pond; but they'll soon be culled again. Many were kept because they were too small and the pattern hadn't quite emerged on them, but now with less fish in the pond they'll have room to develop and grow.
Mark Gardener came by to help cull and shoot a video of the day, his video and blog can be viewed at www.niigata-nishikigoi.com
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Devin's Pond
I'm raising Kohaku fry this year, on 7-27-09 I received 15,000 offspring of a Hoshikin female bred with a Nogami male. The Hoshikin female has a 3 step pattern with very good skin quality, and the Nogami male is around 75cm in length, with a decent body for a male. I haven't even started the first cull yet, but I am looking forward to see how these koi develop.
The pond I'm using is different from the previous years at Tatsushiro, the pond I am using is at the very top of Myoken Mountain. Myoken is where many of Marudo's best nisai & sansai are grown, the mud there produces very good hi. In regards to size, the pond is about the same size as the pond I used previously, about 30' by 30' and 3 1/2 feet deep. The only problem with the new pond at Myoken is that it is at the very top of the mountain, so the is no constant water supply. So, if it doesn't rain enough, my pond could dry up, luckily this year there has been plenty of rain this far.
Since releasing the fry on the 27th I've only been able to check my pond a couple of times because I've been assigned to work else where. As of the 4th of August (8 days) my fry have already grown to about 1.5 to 2 cm in length, compared to about 1 cm or a little under when they were released. I believe the fast growth is due to the abundance of daphnia in the pond.
At this rate I'm hoping to do the first cull around the 16th of the month, maybe sooner...
The pond I'm using is different from the previous years at Tatsushiro, the pond I am using is at the very top of Myoken Mountain. Myoken is where many of Marudo's best nisai & sansai are grown, the mud there produces very good hi. In regards to size, the pond is about the same size as the pond I used previously, about 30' by 30' and 3 1/2 feet deep. The only problem with the new pond at Myoken is that it is at the very top of the mountain, so the is no constant water supply. So, if it doesn't rain enough, my pond could dry up, luckily this year there has been plenty of rain this far.
Since releasing the fry on the 27th I've only been able to check my pond a couple of times because I've been assigned to work else where. As of the 4th of August (8 days) my fry have already grown to about 1.5 to 2 cm in length, compared to about 1 cm or a little under when they were released. I believe the fast growth is due to the abundance of daphnia in the pond.
At this rate I'm hoping to do the first cull around the 16th of the month, maybe sooner...
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