[MUSIC]
All right, Eric.
Now, I have a couple three-year-olds.
We had four-year-olds, really easy to tell male, female.
>> Yeah. >> Three-year-olds should be easy, right?
It should be easy but I'm, I'm a little stumped.
I mean, I could make a guess, but I already feel like I'm gonna be wrong-.
>> Yeah. >> Cuz they're so close.
>> It is, it is really, really difficult to tell the difference between the two.
And this is a, a big part of it has to do with trusting your,
your dealer, your koi dealer, who you're working with.
>> Yeah.
>> And I, I have to go through the same thing working with these Koi breeders in Japan.
I've been working with them for 15 years, and-.
>> Right. >> We have a really strong relationship with
each other, iIt's built on trust.
And they help guide me through what's male, what's female and so
I can help pass this information along to you guys.
>> Right. >> So, that's really really important.
What we're looking at here for me, the way I can tell between male and
female is partially cuz I know the breeders where these fish come from.
>> Yeah. >> Their bloodlines.
So I know how their characteristics develop.
>> Okay, let me, let me play with this for just a second, let me change some water here.
Let me just tell you what I see, and I.
I see this one has, it's a little bit thicker right here.
But when I look at him this also has, seems like a thinner base than this one and
it looks like this one is a little bit just barely longer than that one.
>> Yeah.
>> So, you know, because this one seems thicker I would say.
I want to call that the female because it's a little bit longer, which it's bigger and
has a little bit thicker base.
But, my gut tells me because of high wide this is,
maybe this one just hasn't reached it's capacity yet.
So, I'm kinda, I'm kinda leaning towards this one as being the female.
>> Right.
>> But I'm just guessing.
>> No, everything, everything you said is exactly.
Exactly correct as far as the length of the fish.
And this is actually, this is our female here.
For me, how I can tell the difference between male and female because you're right,
this body is actually little bit, a little bit wider-.
>> Mm-hm. >> Than this one here.
See how dark red this is?
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> And you see how light-orange this is?
>> Okay.
>> I know for a fact that Kota Showa have really really deep red, but
right now it's sort of a lighter-orange color.
Well as it develops, it's gonna mature into a deeper red and
that's a characteristic of a female.
Females take a long time to develop, where males are already going.
They're, they're-.
>> They're already-.
>> They're bright red from day one.
>> Okay.
>> And they're bright red from day 8,000.
>> Nice, well.
>> For me, that's, that's the way I can tell.
>> You know, unless, unless you're dealing with someone that can show you those things,
it might still be a guess.
Cuz, cuz, what, from what, our other Koi discussions,
we talked about is some fish are grown faster than others.
And sometimes they hold them back a little bit to help the thing develop.
So, just because you have the size difference,
you might have the wrong sex identified because they're the same size, but-.
>> Absolutely. >> Grown at different times.
And we have something going on here too, that I wanna show you.
Another difference between male and female, is that females they,
when they stress out they can bleed from their gills.
>> Okay.
>> And that's that's something never to worry about, or freak out about.
It's something I deal with all the time when I bag a female, and
move it from one pond to the other.
>> Uh-huh. >> So actually stress and
bleed a little bit in, in the tank.
And so we're seeing here, I don't know if you notice.
>> [CROSSTALK] I see the discoloration, yeah,
that's why I keep changing the water a little bit.
>> This water gets cloudy. Yeah, yeah exactly.
That's that's coming from, from her right now.
And males, males won't do that.
Yeah for, for me the easy way to tell is based completely on the color.
And then the shape of the fins, which is also something that's really hard to tell and
you'd have to know the bloodline of the Koi.
But females tend to have more diamond-shaped fins,
where males sometimes have these big, like, round, giant fan.
If that, if that makes sense, when I say fan I mean like a Japanese style.
>> Yeah of course. [CROSSTALK] It's gotta be Japanese
style for them.
>> Right, right.