Our tour of Magnoy - Maagan Michael (MADAN)

A two-day International Workshop on CyHV-3 (KHV) took place on Feb 17-18, 2008 in Israel. On the second day of the workshop, an organized tour of the Magnoy consortium's Maagan Michael site was organized. This is a similar tour to the one I previously took to Hazorea Aquatics in October 2007, as well as the tour to the sister site of the Magnoy consortium at Gan Shmuel in December 2007.

Magnoy is a consortium of 5 fish breeding kibbutzim in Israel: Gan Shmuel, Maagan Michael, Kfar Ruppin, Maarbarot, and Kibbutz Yizrael. Maagan Michael is the name of the kibbutz, but the fish center is called MADAN.

The #1 problem affecting Koi throughout the world is the Koi Herpes Virus, also known as KHV. Magnoy is a world-wide pioneer in vaccinating their Koi against this virus. They currently use the KV3 vaccine, as produced by Kovax to innoculate their fish.

KHV is a highly contagious disease that usually causes death to about 80% of all Koi in a pond within 2 weeks and only targets Koi and carp (not goldfish). Koi seem most susceptible at water temperatures of 72-81°F (22-27°C), but the full range of temperature is 64°F to 81°F (18-27°C). Koi will not get KHV at below 64°F or above 81°F. External symptoms would be lesions and blisters, bleeding gills and sunken eyes. There is no treatment for KHV - once your fish has it - it will either live or die.

Magnoy mainly exports its Koi and other fish to Western Europe and the United States.

Maagan Michael has 36 concrete indoor tanks - each 9 cubic meters in size. In here is where they raise the fish initially. The water is cycled once every hour and they try to maintain 10kg of fish per cubic meter of water. The fish stay in these tanks for the first 3 months of their life before they are vaccinated and put in the outdoor ponds.

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The three pictures above are their 3cm Koi in the indoor tanks. One can see how hungry the little guys can be via that last picture.

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The above 4 pictures show various accessories used in fish management. The first is a "fish pusher", which fits snugly into the concrete tank and can be used to herd the fish to one end of the tank for easy capture. The next few pictures shows various sorter grates and boxes that helps to easily sort the Koi by size.

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We then moved on to the packing house where they have a large number of holding tanks for fish waiting for shipping.

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Magnoy had at the time Chagoi and Yamatonishiki Koi in some of their holding tanks.

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Above are some pictures of some of the 8cm Koi they had in the holding tanks.

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Above are a number of 40cm Koi which are considered top quality Koi. Every time Magnoy harvests Koi from their mud ponds, they remove the best and send them back to the mud ponds for further growth. The rest they leave for sale. These 40cm Koi usually sell for around $600. Buyers usually come and hand pick the Koi they want.

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Right behind the packing house they have a number of large circular tanks for some of the largest Koi to wait before being brought into the packing house. This is where the buyers come and hand select which Koi they wish shipped to them.

Now I have an 11 second video clip showing some of the larger Koi in the outdoor holding pools. Just click on it to start.

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Lastly we come to the final stage of the process - packing the Koi for shipping. The temperature of the water is gradually reduced to 10C (50F) prior to shipping. Each box is clearly marked with how many fish are in each box and the size of the fish. One can see that only 17 larger fish (25-30cm) fit in a box to Koi International in the USA, vs. 110 Koi in the 5-6cm range. Double plastic bags are used. All air is sucked out of the bag and pure oxygen is inserted. The boxes are then sent straight the airport where they can be shipped to the UK or to the USA. The fish usually arrive at their destination within 12-15 hours. Very rarely does something bad happen to the fish in transit, like some airline ground crew leaving the box out in the summer sun for a number of hours due to some baggage handlers strike.

Magnoy

Other Koi farm tours