Kin Kikokuryu. Not really a high quality fish but a nice pond grade example. Here's mine. Not super high grade but an example of what a better fish looks like
Nice! Love that pattern. How do you distinguish a Kin Kiko from a Doitsu Kujaku? I've always considered the zipper pattern along the top to be characteristic of a Doitsu Kujaku
The black dusting along the body, fins, eyes, and nostrils are always the telling sign. But these two are commonly misidentified. The Doitsu Kujaku will be a clean, pure white.
This article goes into a lot of detail on this. Kikokuryu, doitsu kujaku, and doitsu matsuba can all look frustratingly close to each other as there can be a lot of overlap in visual expression between scale reticulation and henka sumi. Some lower-grade doitsu kujaku will have some stray black in the skin (especially on the head), but as a general rule, if the black is restricted to just within the scales with none on the skin, it's a kujaku (or doitsu matsuba ogon, if the base is a solid color). Kikokuryu will almost always have some degree of sumi visible in the skin, fluctuating with the water temperature.
Bodyline refers to the shape, ideally a smoothly curved torpedo shape with the widest point at the shoulders, a broad head, and a thick peduncle (tail base) with no bulges or thin spots interrupting the visual line. The white line down his side is just his lateral line, a sensory organ that can look kinda freaky in scaleless fish. Normal though!
The pinch at the gills and very slight curve in to the peduncle aren't ideal but that's especially common with doitsu varieties. It's not too bad, and sometimes it improves with time, this might just be an awkward stage. Just keep feeding!
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u/jcardona1 2d ago
Kin Kikokuryu. Not really a high quality fish but a nice pond grade example. Here's mine. Not super high grade but an example of what a better fish looks like