Selecting Tosakins

[Cincy Ranchu]

Tedster and all,

So I have about 200 1.5" fish and some have perfect tails, just like in the books. When do you give up on the Tosakin "want ta be's"?

Also is short gill plates are an issue, do you cull for this trait or wait till they get robust and use them. In Ryukins this is an inbreeding trait, not positive waht to do here, ( remember Ted it is Friday)!:youtellme::exact::yess::youtellme:

[Tedster]

Hi Gary,

It takes awhile for tosakins to grown and for their tails to develop properly.
Cull those that have either curled or short gills. As for the tails, make sure they are balanced on both sides and that the top of the tail isn't 'pinched'.
Out of your 200, only a few will be good specimens as you'll notice that as they grow in size, the tails may split, more short or curled gills, tails that fold/curl upwards, tails that end up being like fantails and don't curl, as well as those that can't swim properly. Get rid of all these fish. Drop me an email if you have more questions.

Cheers!

Ted

[Tedster]

By the way Gary, is this a new spawn that you had or is this the tosakin X ryukin cross that you did?

Ted

[bekko]

I toss 70 to 90% at four weeks. They never, ever get better... only worse.

-steve

[Cincy Ranchu]

Tedster

Combination of the stock you gave me and the Tosakin X Ryukin cross.

[Tedster]

You had some really nice fish in the cross, I would be ruthless in culling now!

Cheers!

TT

[bigbettadan]

I ended up with 3 I like from the ones I brought home from the social. I culled a few recently for partial tail splitting......

Dan

[bekko]

After "selecting" tosa all day I have to edit and clarify post #4 above. To edit, the range is now 30 to 90% removed on the first cull. After rocking along in the 70 to 90% removal rate for months, all of a sudden there was a group with only 30% culls. The group after that (same broodstock, a week or so later) was back to 70% culls. Go figure.

To clarify, if the tail on a young tosa is not full at about four weeks, then it will never be full. Also, any asymmetry in the tail will become magnified as it grows and they do not striaghten out later.

-steve