Excellent bro James. Sometime I honestly think male fishes are so much beautiful nowothstanding they are smaller in size generally. I kept a few male Showas in my pond and I do actual enjoy seeing them.

Let's discuss how some can groom males better than others and what it actually takes to have a spectacular male in the pond. My opinion:

1. Sinking food
2. Not too high turnover rate
3. Frequency of feeding

Because male kois makan n cabut, feeding regime needs to be adjusted.

Uncle James, could you please elaborate on "not too high turnover rate"? Why so?

Males are over aggressive so with strong water they might tend to swim around more. If they kept more still then more fat will b stored than burnt. Theoretically la. But if they dun get hungry n dun eat also pointless.

Ah so I thought, but some theories also claim that strong water current=good exercise hence they get hungrier and also more built. Hmmm

Here is my only male koi in the pond. currently at 68cm for a yonsai.

[URL=http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/sacicu/media/20140821_102410.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u499/sacicu/20140821_102410.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Here is the same koi when it was just 37cm. I got this koi as a nisai female at only 22cm
[URL=http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/sacicu/media/SAM_2851.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u499/sacicu/SAM_2851.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Most of the time(3 out of 4) I have been able to pick and groom males whereby they dont look like the typical male koi in some hobbyist. The 1 out 4 usually are the once that dont have the appetite and need to be culled immediately IMO. The only problem with most males even with those that look like girthy is that they stop growing in length or grow so slowly once they reach a certain length as such they don't pass my criteria regardless of how nice they look. Many of the younger females have surpassed this male koi reaching from 77 to 80cm as sansai with female nisais around 63 to 70cm. It is very rare to get a male that has the size, (girth and legnth) of females and most of the time these command a very high price as well in Japan as nisai or sansai and not necessary guarantee that it will continue to grow like the size of quality females

I do not feed sinking pellets because I do not believe in them.
My turnover rate is 30 minutes or 2x an hour with all return to pond go thru submerged matts and showers.
I have normally strong current coming from plenty of aeration.
I only normally feed good quality 36% protein growth food combined with certain percentage of 38% protein color most of the time but feed 6x a day. I do not feed every Saturday and Sunday. Based on assumed weight of koi, I only feed around 0.4 to 0.5% of body weight a day.
I change at least 5% of water a day and clean brushes while dumping water from whole mechanical plus bio everyday.

Here are some other males I have culled before.
[URL=http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/sacicu/media/CU-haku2-1.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u499/sacicu/CU-haku2-1.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/sacicu/media/godanmaruyama.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u499/sacicu/godanmaruyama.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Below is the tosai picture of the koi above from 21 to 24cm
[URL=http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/sacicu/media/kohaku.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u499/sacicu/kohaku.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Bro James, more than half in my pond are also males and my turnover is less than an hour. Initially I also had the same theory as the males only grew in length. After 2-3 yrs, can see them putting on a bit more, so could be a case of length first, then more girth later. Like most human ;) Great looking male shusui you have!

Bro HDCu, can I ask why did you let go the kohakus? Look like good quality to me...

Bro Wklim,

Yes both kohaku are major show winners despite the fact that they are not expensive one. However, i need to cull to give the much more expensive females room to grow. Also, my objectives have changed as I am now aiming for 8 jumbo good quality gosanke koi in the future.

Thanks Bro HDCu, all the best to your jumbo project and pls do post updates :)
Maybe can plan for 2 ponds... 1 for jumbo females and another for quality males :-D

I remembered reading somewhere that one of the tips for grooming and bulking male kois is by putting all males only in one pond. The reason behind it is that they all have same eating habits and pattern hence they will all get enough and equally distributed food portion food and can be fed to the frequency and volume that 's more suitable to males. It also says that they will be less distracted in chasing the females... ;-)

Uncle @pandai , yup, it's like that in Japan. All males in one pond, feed high protein sinking (good reason to build another pond eh ) :-D

Practically most of us wun have that luxury... So idea is to discuss how we can do this in our ponds.

We have to understand male koi behaviour. From my limited koi experience, female koi tends to stay on the surface, gulping the food, while male koi tends to go up, then dart. Similar behaviour with sinking food. Of course, you get outliers in both sexes.

So koi feeding plays a role in a mixed pond. If we feed only 2-10mins a few times a day, male koi might not have the time to eat their fill as the female will be eating more of the lot. If you have a on-demand feeder, or time feeder that spreads feed over like 30mins, then male koi might have more time to feed.

We still cannot run away from genetics, which gives the body shape and structure, but what we can do is to maximise that potential.

My male Isa Showa at 68cm now
www.koianswers.com/discussion/download/16260/Isa.jpg

Bought it about 2 years ago at around 45-50cm
www.koianswers.com/discussion/download/16259/IMG_1464.jpg

Gud read. Thanks for sharing bro @James . Most of my male koi also started to bulk up after some time. Though some very stubborn not bulking X(

I think if we watch them closely and understand their eating patterns, it will help. I had a Maruyama kohaku once and she only ate at a quiet corner. Once I observed that, she started to bulk easily as I was throwing food there.