They breed just fine.

Koi and BF koi are closely related enough that they will spawn. Some of the offspring will have regular fins and some will be long finned.

I had a group spawn this spring involving one standard fin female, two butterfly females, and all butterfly males of varying colors. Out of 15 surviving fry, most are standard fin, but it appears as if five or six will have long fins. Interestingly, I'm getting some amazing colors and patterns in these babies, especially in the standard finned -- kohakus, matsubas, some doitsu, orenji, and even a nice gin rin. I figured they'd all be gray. Now I need to find good homes for most of them -- I'm terribly overstocked.

I just read in a different sandbox that you can cross 2 longfins and get a significant amount of regular fins. The genetics are pretty mixed up. I think they bred the original longfins with traditionals to improve the coloration to get to where the colors are today.

there are a lot of longfin breeders that regularly cross standard fin koi in to try to improve the bodies of the longfins. Standard koi have much stronger torpedo shaped bodies and the longfin bodies are weaker looking. The crosses were also done as hoovb said...to improve the coloration of longfins. I did have a spawn between 4 longfins this year and at least half of them are standard fin. Most of the upper-end koi breeders don't have any longfin genetics in their standard koi, but most longfins do have standard koi in them.

Thank you all for your answers. The thing is that I was told over the weekend, by a professional who has good info about building ponds and waterfalls, that they can't cross naturally, but only in a lab, where they are manipulated. Put that together with the fact that he is convinced that a very ugly, koi with bad body conformation that he has in his display pond is worth $40,000 simply and only because it was bred by a prestigious Japanese koi family. That and the fact that common sense would dictate that they would have the ability, brought me here to check out his story with you guys. I have had them together before, and never gotten babies that I could tell were crosses. I don't actually mind if the two koi varieties spawn, as long as I don't get the ugly brown ones. When I have gotten those, in the past, I never knew if they were from koi/bf koi crosses, or if it was from the goldfish that were also in the same pond. Of course, they breed like guppies, so I am planning to give away the unremarkable gf, and move the nicer ones into the the pond now dedicated to koi, and put the koi in with my bf koi because that pond is bigger. I'm excited about this plan. Thanks again.

That's funny Ann. I have found that MANY professional pond builders know how to make a pretty pond, but know very little about actually building a functional easy maintenance pond. And they know even less about koi!! lol!! Please note I am not saying ALL pond builders, but many of them. I do know of a few pond builders who are very knowledgable about fish. That poor guy you know needs to realize that even the top breeders in Japan produce some very poor quality fish and guess where most of those fish end up?? That's right.....here in the USA! The Japanese keep the best fish over there and grow them up for a long time before offering them for sale.

Well, besides that, the reason they can breed such valuable fish is that they cull ruthlessly. Still, it's all business, and if they could get 40K for their stinker fish, they wouldn't throw them out. I think this fish was given to the guy, and he just wants to feel cool about this Japanese fish he somehow got. I believe he is capable of making a great pond, he just doesn't know anything about the value of the fish he puts in them.
When I move my koi to the bigger pond, I want to photograph each one in a rubbermaid box, marked at two inch intervals so that size can be discerned in the pic, and see how they compare to fish that were bought for decent bucks. I'd love to have them graded by people on my familiar sites, and some who are involved locally here, with shows. I don't expect real monetary value from them, because I am a very minimal hobbyist and I got mine like most people do. I just want to know which ones are the highest quality.

You're right Ann. One spawn may produce 50,000 fry. They know from the breeding if the fry should be white or black (showa and shiro utsuri fry are black and get their colors later, most other varieties start out white) so they can start culling at 2 weeks discarding any offspring that isn't the right color. Then they cull again and again, until they have maybe 5000 left. Of those, most will still be pond grade but at least sellable. Some look pretty nice as 6" fish but do not have what it takes to go the distance, so they color them up really nicely with color enhancing feeds and export them. They get sold for as little as $10 each. The dealers here pay shipping and then mark them up (sometimes mark them WAY up) and sell them proudly as Japanese imports for up to $100. They may look great now, but will probably not look so great in a few years. the ones that the breeders see some potential....the ones with good patterns, good bodies, and deep beni (red) get put back into the mud ponds for a year. Then their price goes WAY up.....or sometimes when they are harvested their price goes down because what the breeder was looking for did not happen. So it is culled, exported and sold here as a nisai (2 year old). What a koi buyer has to keep in mind is ALL fish that are offered for sale were selected by the breeder to be culled because of something he did not like. The price depends on how close to perfect the fish is when it is culled.

Although some things can't be seen in pictures (like skin quality and depth of beni), I'll be happy to look at your fish and tell you the good and bad about them. I am not a koi judge, but do have a pretty good eye.

Ann...can you be more specific ... what exactly does the professional mean with this statement...

"The thing is that I was told over the weekend, by a professional who has good info about building ponds and waterfalls, that they can't cross naturally, but only in a lab, where they are manipulated."

Does he mean that long fins and regular koi can't cross naturally? ... or Koi and goldfish can't cross naturally?

Joann

Joann, I think what it means is the professional is sort of an idiot. lol!!

Joann,sorry I still managed to make it somewhat ambiguous, even though I read it through and edited it repeatedly. I agree I got sloppy, there. I meant that he said koi and bf koi have to be hybridized in the lab. He said they have to take the eggs and slit them before they mix them with the sperm. It didn't sound right to me, but I wasn't certain enough, because my own experiences were inconclusive, due to the fact that I had gf together w/both kinds of koi. Still, if koi and gf can spawn, which I know they can, then I didn't see why the two koi varieties couldn't do it. I just didn't want a bunch of brown throwbacks.

Well now...the professional pond builder should stick to building ponds, instead of giving out erroneous information about koi...

I have long fin koi (butterflies) and regular koi and they breed in our pond -- and not in a lab...LOL!

The koi on the left is Sunny and on the right is little Red Nose...they are regular koi and the Pop's to most of our koi offspring.

Hey Sunny, We're in big trouble buddy...did you hear, we're not suppose to be courting the butterfly babes!?!"
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This is Terminator and Silver, two of the Mom's to our baby koi...about 90% of the fry from the spawns are long fins.

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My other female "Pearl" on the left.

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Silver and one of her long fin babies.
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Beautiful, beautiful fish. I have a standard koi that looks like that and has already proven his/her productivity. Don't know if it was the ma or the pa, but the baby matches. I hope I can get some longfins like your lovely Pearl. What a beautiful name, too. Consider it stolen.

Well heres what I found out I have 1 butterfly koi which is silver and black I bout it 4 years ago and i now found 5 smaller koi that are silver and black but reg finned I did find one orange butterfly baby about 4 inchs long also so can they breed you tell me.
BTW what beautiful fish Its like anything one persons says yuck the other is in love

I only have a small pond and can't imagine the amount of spawn that it sounds like they have. How do you keep the number down if they do breed so prolifically? They are truely beautiful!!!!

really pretty bfly's.i just started breeding them.they just spawned with my reg. koi.hope i get babies.this will be my first year.how old do koi have to be to start spawning.
ive been breeding japanese shubunkins for several years now and boy are they pretty.their tails are as long as their body.