Koi and Comet Goldfish can and do breed... - by Doc Johnson
http://www.koivet.com/html/articles/articles_details.php?article_id=85
It's commonly asked if Koi and Comets can hybridize, and indeed they can. We don't think it's intentional, but instead; the accidental fertilization of one species' roe by the other species' milt. We don't know if it can go both ways; e.g: Koi egg x Comet milt versus Koi milt versus Comet egg.
The offspring are huge. Usually they occur in a solemn brown color and simply outgrow all their siblings. Others are a homogenous grey color with a nice Ami pattern. Still others are colored a base grey with cinammon spots much like the Ochiba Shagure. Blue Ridge Fish Hatchery will occasionally "try something new" and created some hybrids which were Doitsu, grey ghosts.
The specimens here are exceptionally well marked. I have four hybrids in my personal collection, and one of them is completely cinammon and has sparkle scales - Ginrin.
They are incredibly hardy. Last year when I killed the whole pond with Potassium, the water cleared weeks later and there were two of these hybrids huddled at the bottom, waiting for food. Suffice it to say that when the world finally "nukes" itself, all that will be left are cockroaches, defense attorneys, usurous mortgage-policy makers, and KoiComet hybrids.
Hybrids are reported to be sterile, and this is borne out (only) anecdotally by the absence of babies from these in one collection over several years.
How can you tell a Hybrid from a real comet or a real Koi? The Hybrid has no barbels but is built like, and sized like a Koi.
"I have some other Koi Comet Hybrids which are chocolate brown with ginrin scalation. The key is that they do NOT have barbels. These are nearing twenty-something inches in length." ~ Doc Johnson
http://www.koivet.com/html/articles/articles_details.php?article_id=85
It's commonly asked if Koi and Comets can hybridize, and indeed they can. We don't think it's intentional, but instead; the accidental fertilization of one species' roe by the other species' milt. We don't know if it can go both ways; e.g: Koi egg x Comet milt versus Koi milt versus Comet egg.
The offspring are huge. Usually they occur in a solemn brown color and simply outgrow all their siblings. Others are a homogenous grey color with a nice Ami pattern. Still others are colored a base grey with cinammon spots much like the Ochiba Shagure. Blue Ridge Fish Hatchery will occasionally "try something new" and created some hybrids which were Doitsu, grey ghosts.
The specimens here are exceptionally well marked. I have four hybrids in my personal collection, and one of them is completely cinammon and has sparkle scales - Ginrin.
They are incredibly hardy. Last year when I killed the whole pond with Potassium, the water cleared weeks later and there were two of these hybrids huddled at the bottom, waiting for food. Suffice it to say that when the world finally "nukes" itself, all that will be left are cockroaches, defense attorneys, usurous mortgage-policy makers, and KoiComet hybrids.
Hybrids are reported to be sterile, and this is borne out (only) anecdotally by the absence of babies from these in one collection over several years.
How can you tell a Hybrid from a real comet or a real Koi? The Hybrid has no barbels but is built like, and sized like a Koi.
"I have some other Koi Comet Hybrids which are chocolate brown with ginrin scalation. The key is that they do NOT have barbels. These are nearing twenty-something inches in length." ~ Doc Johnson
Did you call him on it? I would've.