Home

I head out for home tomorrow, still with no news on how my visa is coming. Atleast I'll keep busy while back in Minnesota, we have the 2nd Annual Upper Midwest Koi Club's Koi Show at Bachmann's coming up. I'll be there helping out and after that Koi Acres is also very busy building ponds, so I'll be working on that too. So atleast as I wait for my visa to be processed I won' t be sitting around bored.

Devin's Pond

I did the first cull on my pond this past Sunday the 13th. Last year when I did showa I only release about 10,000 fry in my pond, but this year I released 20,000 sanke fry. Showa are culled once (picking out only the black fry) before being released out into the mud ponds, therefore not as many fry are released. So this year with double the amount of fish I asked my friend to help me cull. He agreed to help & I am very thankful for it!

From 20,000 fry we culled down to 775, with about 3 that really stand out. My fry have grown to about 3-4 cm, not too bad; but they could be bigger. With only 775 pieces left over though, they should have a lot more room to grow! I'm already looking forward to the second cull!

Fan Mail

There was an article written about me in Niigata pref.`s main new paper (Niigata Nippo) a couple weeks ago. I`ve been getting recognised out in public a lot lately because of it, its kinda odd. I`ve been in the new paper back in Minnesota, even on TV, but I`ve never gotten this much recognision back home.* But then the topper came a couple days ago, I got a letter in the mail, written in English & Japanese. It is from a family in a town about 30 minutes away, they said they were amazed at my interest in Japanese culture. They invited me to come stay at their home and attend a large 3 day festival held in their town. They left their phone number in the letter, but I don`t know if I`ll be in Japan during the festival; so I haven`t called them or know if I should? The kicker though, is how the letter got to me. My address wasn`t exactly written in the news paper, so they just wrote down my name, general area I live in and `Koi Farm`. The letter made its way to me though... maybe the people at the post office read the article about me too...


*Its probably cause I stick out like a sore thumb in this sea of brown eyed black haired people though.

Devin`s Pond & Problem

I don`t have a problem with my pond (yet) like the many I encountered last year. I`m having a problem getting a different visa so I can stay in Japan. My current visa ends on July 24th and Japanese Customs & Immigration thinks I`ve stayed long enough. I`d like to continue my studies of nishikigoi, but I`m having trouble changing over to a different visa. I`ve applied for another visa, so now all I have is to wait and see if it is accepted.

With all of this in the back of my mind I contemplated whether or not to raise fry this year, knowing that I might not be here to finish out the growing / culling season. I decided to go ahead and do it though, if things don`t work out then Marudo will take care of my pond and keep the koi in the fall. So about 2 weeks ago I added sanke fry to my pond, 20,000 pieces. They`ve already grown to about a 1.5 cm in length, form about 0.7 cm when they were added. If they keep up the pace they should be ready for the first cull around the first week of July!

Spawning Continues

Since the first set, we`ve spawned two more sets of 3 females recently. To accomodate for more fry we moved out tosai to open up some more tanks. We reset up the hatching nursury in the tanks we opened up, now we have lots of room to work with!

The majority of the females spawned recently were showas (5 out of 6 of them), so we have a lot of fry culling ahead of us. We only keep the black fry produced from showas, and we`ll usually start the culling process 2-3 days after they have hatched. Luckly we have a group of grandmothers come and help us because it is very time consuming work!

Spawning

The breeding season is upon us, and we spent the last week preparing for it. We set up all the spawning liners in the concrete tanks & constructed a support system to hold it all up. We also modified the air system by adding spliters into the lines so that each spawning liner has an airstone in it. Next was onto the artificial spawning station, getting all the supplies ready, and tanks set up so we could start spawning.

Two days ago we spawned the first of many sets, a Kohaku, and also a new Sanke we picked up this year. The Sanke is big, and had a lot of eggs! I look forward to seeing how they turn out.

While waiting for the fry to hatch, we set up the `nursury` where we grown the newly hatched fry up to about a centimeter in length before releasing them into the mud ponds. The `nursury` consists of a box net (fine mesh), so again we had a build a support system to hold the box nets. Also, in the `nursury` we us pure oxygen, so we had to set up another air system too. Lasty we set up a brine shrimp hatching station, we use the brine shrimp as a first food for the koi fry.

G8 Summit

On the 11-13th of this month the G8 Labour and Employment Ministers Meeting was held in Niigata city at Toki Messe. Many displays were set up inside of the exhibitors hall featuring products produced in Niigata, along with displays of Niigata`s culture. The Shinkokai was asked to bring koi to put on display, since Nishikigoi are a large part of Niigata`s culture.

On the 10th we headed up to Niigata to set up our booth, it included 3 show tanks, a bench for laying out pamphlets & videos, and a couple display boards about Nishikigoi history & different types. Dainichi brought 2 big kohakus & 1 big showa, all over 80 cm, to put on display. Takahashi brought a dozen or so mixed 2 year olds, and Marudo brought 2 yamabuki & 2 Kujaku 4 year old koi for display. The displays were set up as an appeal of Niigata, and the Ministers & Delegates were allowed to walk around and look in between meetings.

I worked the booth with Otsuka on the 11th, it was a little slow in the morning, but we had quite a bit of people come look in the afternoon. The next day the booth was tended by Dainichi & his wife, and Suda`s daughter Yukari, they said they had quite a bit of visitors. The last day Marudo & his wife were there to answer questions, they said it was pretty slow though. Overall though, the koi were the most popular display, the other exhibitors would often come by to look too.

The afternoon on the last day we tore down, there was a couple news paper photographers taking pictures of us bagging the fish up. So we might be in the news paper! The Summit was very fun, and good exposure for Nishikigoi to the world. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I`m glad to have taken part in it.

Whats Happening in the Koi World?

At the moment, not much. It`s Golden Week (Japanese Holiday) so most people are taking it easy. But a little update on whats been going on lately:

• Most of the koi have all already been released out into the ponds. Pretty much all that is left to put out is the Jumbo Tosai & Tategoi.
• Most of the predator netting on the big koi ponds is done too, only about 3 more ponds left to do. We have about 20 ponds or so that we string.
• Progess on the new koi house is going good, the rebar for all the walls is done; and the forms for the outside walls are almost set.
• We`ve also been doing a lot of moving and shifting around of koi the didn`t sell so that we can make room in preparation for breeding coming up.

After Golden Week is over it looks like we`ll start to release the Jumbo Tosai & Tategoi out into their ponds. Then after that its time to start breeding!

Also, over Golden Week, the boss is in Singapore judging the All Asia Koi Show. And Toshi, the son, is in Aichi prefecture for a koi sale.