HI
Since we have or had one of the Masters on board here I thought I would ask this question:
I purchased some nice clean red KOI swords with clear patterns as young and watched,as they grew,to see them turn all red. They actually are still rather nice,if all red. Is that color change a normal thing and can that can happen with KOIs?'

Further,because they had "failed" I had some progeny of those now all red KOIs (which were all red,partly red,or even straight white) together with one black speckled and red KOI male that I had around. The progeny from him and a nice all red "KOI" female are all (about 15 of them) front red,back all black with pretty big tails. The batch does not present any genetic scatter at all to speak of, in that the babies are all pretty much identical. Is this normal, ,interesting or "who cares"? I like the fact that they are very attractive and ALL THE SAME

THanks for your thoughts

As I may or may not have mentioned before, I am no longer breeding, but I have done extensive breeding, crossing and developing of Fancy Xiphophorus in the past. I worked with Albino Koi Swordtail stock which I acquired from Mike Yamamoto from Hawaii (He also acquired various strains from me)

I never experienced any broken patterns or all Reds from his stock. I did get the usual Red head/ White rear Tancho, Red/ White/ Red, and solid White Cherry Cheek from most broods. The highest percentage were Red/ White/ Red.

I've seen fish from stock which was crossed out with a lot of broken patterns and solid Red specimens.

My suggestion as usual is selective breeding.

Darrell E. Mefford

This can happen when the Koi are throws from a black spotted Koi strain, but I'm sure it can happen in other scenarios as well. All of the offspring from my Koi groups were Koi of one variety or another.

I agree that selective breeding should eventually result in a nice Koi strain, although it may take some time for it to be true breeding.

I am partial to the 'Tancho' version, it's such a striking look. I'll have them again one day.

A couple of other things. As with a lot of issues involving Fancy Xiphophorus, there times when strains aren't labeled correctly. I've seen photos of Red & White Peppermint or other Swordtails being labeled as "Koi".

The nature of the Peppermint, Piebald, Pinto strain is to be born Red or Gold and lose the color to White or neutral as they age and then gain some color back.The Koi strain usually keeps the same pattern (one of the three that I mentioned)

I've also seen fish resulting from Koi/ Peppermint crosses.

Darrell E. Mefford