This is my right hand in Japan when it comes to guaranteeing that my koi shipments arrive here in the USA in perfect condition. I am very lucky to have made a business friendship with Fujio Oomo and because of this I have been able to make several other friendships with Fujio's friends who all just happen to be KOI BREEDERS! Besides being my sometimes guide, interpreter and shipper Oomo-san is a Showa breeder. And at that he breeds exclusively High Quality Showa, although occasionally you can buy High Quality Hi Utsuri from him. Also Oomo-san also finds me other hard to get show quality varieties that he has picked up on his daily trips to many of Niigata's breeders.

Fujio has 3 pairs of parent koi or Oya-goi. He has about 20 mud ponds, 5 or 6 of these are used for first season koi or Tosai koi, 10 to 15 mud ponds are used for 2yr old koi or nisai koi and the rest are used for 3yr old koi or older and brood stock. Tosai ponds are a different size and depth then the rest of the ponds. The picture above shows a few of Oomo's ponds neatly tucked away on a steep mountain side where zero space is wasted.

Here are a few numbers from Fujio to help explain why Oomo's koi are of such high quality, one of Oomo's female koi will produce 200,000 to 250,000 eggs. The hatching rate of the eggs is about 50%. So we are left with about 100,000 to 125,000 baby fry.

When you breed Showa you only keep the black fry (Kuroko) and from the 100,000 to 125,000 fry left only 50% of these will be black so from one set of parents we are left with 50,000 to 62,000 fry that will be culled over 5 times throughout the whole summer. These numbers are average for just one of Fujio' females.

From the numbers listed above Fujio released 40,000 fry into 4 different mud ponds in late May. Like I said these will be culled 5 times during their release in May till they are harvested in the early Fall when there will be 2,000 left!