Japanese Koi Fish

Japanese Koi Fish - Getting Started With the Wonderful World of Koi Fish (Freshwater Fish)

For many pond owners across the world, keeping koi fish is seen as a wonderful and enjoyable thing to do. It is true that koi make beautiful ornamental displays and certainly create a talking point for visitors to the home. However, it is important to realize that there is a lot of work and effort involved to make the display a success, here is a quick guide.

What is a koi fish?
Koi fish is a tropical fish and is a natural mutation species of the common fresh water carp. It has been bred for food for many years; most notably throughout the East or Asia. Over the years, the fish became more and more domesticated, which allowed them to be easily transported from country to country.

Color variations are very much a natural phenomenon, but it is only in the last two hundred years that koi fish have been bred for their ornamental display. Furthermore, it is only over the last century that these ornamental fish made their way into the West.

Research conducted as to where the true origin of carp in general has gone on for many years, returning no real results. But what we do know is that cross breeding has lead to wonderful color combinations, from white and blacks to yellows, blues and reds. There are a now number of different koi varieties available, the development of which continues across the world.

The red and white Kohaku remains ever popular, and is certainly a great place to start for the novice koi keeper. However, there are a number of other major koi fish varieties to be on the look out for, which can create some amazing displays in the right setting.

Some of the most popular are: Asagi, a beautiful light blue on the upper body with a red or yellow underbelly; Bekko, which can be red, white or yellow skinned, with tortoise shell black markings; Ginrin, a wonderful show fish with scales which appear to be metallic; Showa, a black skinned fish with red and white markings. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are many more wonderful variations to select from with the best suppliers.

How much does each koi fish cost?

The cost of a koi fish depends greatly on the lineage of the koi, it's size, patterns and whether it is domestic or imported. However the basic cost is how much it has cost the breeder and/or supplier to stock it. For example a young fish about three inches with no claim to known lineage (domestic) will cost around $3 to $5. Most of these koi fish are found at local pet shops and chain stores like Wal-Mart.

The cost then goes up as the size of the koi grows, so paying $60,000 for a koi fish that is three feet long and from a good lineage is expected. A grand champion koi of an All Japan Koi Show can go for as much as $150,000 to $300,000 and then there are some koi fish that are just priceless.
What equipment do you need to keep the koi fish happy and healthy?

Keeping koi fish is something which requires a lot of ongoing work and effort, and also needs

certain amount of equipment to make sure the environment is suitable. Other than having a suitably sized pond, you will also need some basic koi pond supplies.

Fish pond filters and pond pumps are required. Two type of pond filters are needed; a mechanical pond filter to remove the physical waste and debris, and a biological fish pond filter which will remove harmful compounds such as ammonia and nitrite from the water. A pond pump is necessary to move the water around, and aerate it. This not only provides a healthy environment for the fish, but also allows the pond filters to operate successfully.

Other pond supplies to have on hand are water testing kits and associated koi pond products like a good set of nets, buckets and transportation bags. Having a quarantine tank on hand is also a good idea in case you need to separate your stock or collection (the sick from the healthy).

Although getting the right water balance is essential to maintaining a healthy koi fish pond, there will inevitably be instances of koi disease. These are not always easy to spot so monitoring the activity of the fish on a daily basis is essential. A sign of koi diseases will be a lethargic fish, or unusual behavior. On closer inspection, the colors may also seem dull and the eyes cloudy. Depending on the diseases, scales may also appear distended or spotted with white areas. Should you notice anything untoward, the affected fish should be removed to a quarantine tank immediately, and the pond treated to clean the water.

Treatment of the affected koi fish will vary depending on what disease or infection it is suffering from. There are a good supply of antibiotics and treatments available for the most common diseases, so having these on hand is always a good idea. However should further treatment be needed it will be necessary to take the koi fish to a specialized vet.

What and when do you feed koi fish?

Feeding the koi fish is of course an essential part of keeping them happy and healthy, but overfeeding them can cause problems. There are specialized pellets for feeding koi, and these also vary depending on the age of the fish. Feeding them each day, little and often is a good idea, removing anything not eaten within 5 minutes with a net.

It is also important to feed them when the water is warm enough, or they will not digest the koi food well. Keeping the water around sixty to seventy degrees is good. As the seasons get colder, it could be an idea to introduce a water heater to maintain temperature, though having a thermometer on hand to monitor this will help you determine when to feed and when not to.

Become a Fan of Kohaku Koi Fish

Kohaku

If you happen to visit Japan or Japanese garden, then you should not miss a chance to see the Koi fish. Particularly the Kohaku Koi, the fish that is brilliantly white with attractive red patterns on it which appears as if an artist has carefully painted them. It is the most common variety that one would encounter in any show or among any hobbyists collections.

The expression, “The Koi hobby begins and ends with Kohaku” also indicates the popularity of this variety. Koi, are an ornamental fish that has originated from thr common carp. Kohaku is a Koi fish variety; it is one of the three primary types from which many other variations are derived from. Although no written evidence exists on Koi breeding culture from the ancient times, there is some history that was passed verbally through the families of the breeders that can be referred to.

Koi fish are a result of careful breading between Asian and German carp over centuries; Kohaku Koi are believed to be among the first varieties of carp that has been developed for ornamental purposes. They were created by breeding a red-headed female koi with a male that has patterns resembling cherry-blossoms; this resulted in Gosuke blood-line which is extinct now. All existing Kohaku blood-lines

Koi fish are specially bred to produce interesting patterns and colors. They come in a variety of color ranges from pure white, yellow, orange to red, also in blue, green and even in black. Now the colors/color combination availability is almost unlimited. Even among the many varieties, the Kohaku remains the most popular.

The Kohaku Koi comes in a variety of shades of white and red, but the highest quality or grade would have red patterns that match with the color of Japanese flag and the body color should be pure white like snow (Often, color pattern is more orange-ish than red.) The Koi fish should have well defined colors with fine edges that distinguish white and red regions of the body. To be highly graded, there are certain areas of the body which should not have any red spots or patterns, such as fins, around the mouth and lower portions below eyes. Body markings should be pleasant and must have aesthetic pattern. There should be a color break where the tail-fin begins.

What to look for

The female varieties have thicker body and have higher value than male varieties. The body from the top-view should be symmetrical on both sides of the spine. The group of red spots or patterns are called "steps" and the steps on the body are used as one of the primary grading factor. A top quality Koi will have a very smooth flow from head to tail with nice pattern and without any deformations in the body or fins.

The hobby of collecting Koi can be fun and sometimes it can be very expensive as well. Depending on various factors, the price of Kohaku koi varieties can be anywhere in the range of about $50 to as high as $50,000.

Become a Fan of Kohaku Koi Fish

It is said that every hobbyist's collection begins and ends the the Kohaku. The red pattern

is called Hi. The Hi should be thick with good edges. There are all sorts of different Kohaku patterns.
Some are broken up, some are large and sweeping. Look for a pattern that doesn't go down past the eyes and
and is well balanced.

Koi Fish 3D Screensaver

He.. he… akhirnya gue dapat juga file Koi Fish 3D Screensaver 1.0. Pada posting sebelumnya sempat teriak-teriak minta tolong - Help Me Please! agar bisa memiliki file screensaver tersebut. Sebenarnya, untuk crack atau serial numbernya sudah dapat, tapi nggak tau kenapa begitu dicoba pada menu register (setelah install), kok nggak bisa yah?. Gue sih berasumsi mungkin file *.exe-nya tersebut tidak singkron dengan serial numbernya. Memang untuk sekedar mendapatkan file *.exe tidaklah sulit karena sudah tersebar banyak di internet. Namun begitu kita coba masukkan serial numbernya yang juga tersebar di internet belum tentu berhasil (pengalaman pribadi). Jadi saran gue mending cari link yang menyediakan file *.exe dan serial numbernya. Nah kalo mau file dan serial numbernya,

I Killed My Mother’s Fish koi

I may be the worst Chinese daughter in the world.

My mother has a small collection of koi fish in her pond. And they have lived in that pond for as long as I can remember. 10 years maybe?

My mum went on holiday, and she asked me to feed the fish every third day. Easy! No problem!

All went well for the first week.

Then. One day during the second week, I arrived to find the LARGEST FISH floating upside down at the surface of the water.

It was a huge fish. It was like the grand poobah of the pond. But now that it was dead, bug-eyed and belly up… it looked like a huge plastic toy.

OOOH CRAAAP! I had that awful sinking feeling – obviously, I had killed it somehow.

What did I do wrong? Wrong food? Did it starve? Over feed it? Did it die of old age? Do fish even die of old age? Maybe it got cold? Maybe it had a virus, and the other fish will die next? Why the biggest one first?

So I rang my friend – who owns koi fish of his own – and he told me that the fish would probably have been worth $500. SHITE!

I lifted the fish out of the water, dug a hole in the garden, and buried the fish under my mother’s mango tree.

I noticed that the water level of the pond was quite low, so I filled the pond up, and decided to come back the next day to check them again.

Next day : TWO MORE FISH DIED!

That’s $1500 worth of dead fish hanging over my head.

Curiously, they were the two next biggest fish. So more burial services under the mango tree. Those damn mangoes had better be tasty.

Anyway, I did what no child wants to do. I phoned my mum during her overseas holiday, and told her the bad news.

I was thinking, OH COME ON. THEY ARE JUST FISH. It’s not like I’m calling to tell her that her house burnt down. Or that her house was burgled by thieves who had spray painted obscene images on the wall. Just fish! Could be worse!

Yet when I told her, I felt so, so bad and felt like an incompetent teenager again.

*Hangs head down in shame*

And what did she say?

“Oh… that’s not good.” In her massive understatement way.

We discussed what might be the problem, but she really couldn’t make a diagnosis. I may have over fed them?

So with my mother’s instruction, I topped up the pond again, and this time, I was to stay away for three days. I suppose my mum thought the fish were safer that way.

Which was great, because I couldn’t stand finding dead fish everyday. If they were going to die, they would have to do it without me as witness.

I returned after day three, ready to find that ALL the remaining fish had died.

But the survivors seemed fine, if a little lonely.

By the time my mum arrived home, all the remaining fish were alive and well, swimming around like they owned the place.

And so what was the problem?

My mum told me that the pump that circulated the water had failed. Which meant the bubbles of air that the pump was supposed to blow into the water, to oxygenated the water for the fish, had failed!

No pump, no bubbles. No bubbles, not enough oxygen. And so the fish died in order of size – because the bigger fish needed more oxygen. And once the bigger fish died, there was enough oxygen naturally in the water to let the little ones survive.

I thought the pump was just a zen-garden themed ornamental thing!!

How was I supposed to know it made bubbles for the fish for them to actually breath?!

Platinum and Gold Ogon Koi

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Koi Fish Pond 3D Screensaver

A real Japanese Koi can be a very expensive purchase. Who with a few well-wealthy collectors apart - is already prepared to several tens of thousands of euros for a breeding carp forms? Moreover, the welfare of these animals with great effort. How good is a question that you do not need to worry, because with this screen saver you can use the wonderful color carp just subscribed to your monitor watch! Und nicht nur das: And not only that: You can Koiteich even after you like with your favorite varieties, such as Asagi, Kohaku oder Yamabuki Ogon. Observe the carp in different views above and below water, or just follow the camera, as they leisurely circles the pond. The soothing sight of the Japanese garden invites you to spend time.

Koi Fish Expert

Your perfect Koi pond starts with the actual pond itself. You have to create a pond that will not only be pleasing to the eye, but will also adequately sustain Koi. Proper placement, size, and pond type is essential when building your pond.

When it comes to pond size, the bigger is always better. Koi have a habit of growing rather fast, so you have to consider pond size at the same time you are considering how many Koi you are going to put it in.

Unless you have a large amount of knowledge in outdoor landscaping, fish keeping, and construction, it may be a good idea to leave the pond building to a professional. While some people think that building the pond yourself with save you money, this could not be further from the case. If your pond is not build properly the first time, you will end up spending a large amount of money on fixing the problems that come up. Not only that, if your pond is not properly setup, you may not even be able to keep fish alive.

Remember when you hire a professional, it is their job to give you what you want. They can give their knowledge when it comes to decision making, but ultimately, they will do whatever you want them too. Because of this, you cannot blame them if your pond fails do to location, size, or other factors. However, beware of extremely cheap quotes as they may cut corners that could potentially cause you problems later. While quotes will come in different, there should not be a very dramatic difference between them.

ornamental koi fish

each type and age have its own price

Males Nila technology implementation is intended to provide the parent YY tilapia that can produce a single seed is genetically janan sex becomes an important alternative to replace guidance technology uses sex hormones.

Parent Technology YY Male in the adoption to create production techniques that can produce seed parent tuggal male sex. The methodology requires six series of activities that gradual process starting from the first stage of feminization, feminization of verification results (Progeny Test I) and the feminization of the second stage, verification berkromosom YY males (Progeny Test II) and verification of female berkromosom YY (Progeny Test III). Two of the last stage is the multiplication and mass production of YY male parent. Feminization first phase, conducted by Prof.. Sumatadinata and Dr. Komar. Queen Siti high school, producing tilapia female parent who allegedly had an XY chromosome which was then kept in BBPBAT Sukabumi as the implementation of the cooperation between the Directorate General of Fisheries and Aquaculture with BPPT.

Verification is done by mating XY female parent female feminization results with normal male parent and child is going to determine the XY or XX, depending on the sex ratio (sex ratio) resulting from the identification of male genital visually after adult-sized. XY female derived in part on re-feminization and some not-feminization. The second verification conducted on saplings XY male and female descendants produce YY male parent. The third phase of verification carried out on an XY female descendants who were female feminization and produce YY.

Propagation is done by breeding the male parent to female parent YY YY is not sekerabat. Saplings propagated partly difeminisasi to produce YY female parent. Parent propagated consists of YY females average size 96 to 130 grams per fish and the size of 12-130 grams of YY males. In June 2006 the mass-production test has been performed by mating YY Males Females Males YY YY with not a single descendant. Child is still in the form of seed sizes averaging 2-3 cm.
Koi fish is a kind of attitude that a lot of fish, fish reared as decoration kerana gentle nature. He was almost like Gold fish and indeed in the same family with Gold fish.

Koi Fish Type There are many types of koi fish, three of them are very famous called Gosanke. Which includes Gosanke are:

1. Kohaku Kohaku is a koi fish that have a red hue in the color white.

2. Sanke Sanke koi is a type of fish that have a red hue in the color black and white. There are no black marks on the head.

3. Showa Showa is the kind of black koi with red and white complexion.

Useful things about Koi fish

Koi are a wonderful addition to your backyard pond. It is relaxing to watch these graceful fish gliding slowly through the water. To live a a long and healthy life, koi need just as much care as any other pet. Koi live an average of 25-35 years, although some have lived much longer. If you want to provide the proper care and environment for your fish, you need to do some research.

Make sure you do your research before you go to buy your koi. Read through books on koi care, browse the internet, and consult with koi experts.

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High-Dollar Koi Fish Attract

WINTER PARK, Fla. -- They're brightly colored, graceful and some are worth tens of thousands of dollars. But they're not pedigree cats or dogs -- they're fish, or Koi to be exact.

"We show them," John Melz said. "It's very competitive and there's no end to the varieties."

Melz is vice president of the Orlando Koi and Pond Club and he says these fish have a very devoted following.

"It's a very big hobby and worldwide, it's very huge," Melz said.

More than 100 clubs are registered with Associated Koi Clubs of America, but Melz says there are literally thousands of unauthorized clubs across the country.

Koi were originally developed in Japan and are descendants of the common carp. These, however, are no ordinary fish.

"They are bred the same as dogs are bred or horses are bred," Melz said. "They're bred for specific varieties. They have a specific standard for showing. The color has to meet a certain standard. The pattern has to be laid out a certain way."

An individual Koi can be worth tens of thousands of dollars or more if it possesses a show quality.

"I can remember the first time I spent a hundred dollars for a fish and I thought 'My God, what am I doing?' And now I have fish that are thousands of dollars," Melz said.

Koi shows are similar to dog and cat shows and take place all over the world. The Koi are judged on such things as skin quality, body form and color pattern. That's why owners say care and pond maintenance are so crucial.

"You have parasites that you have to keep on top of," Melz said. "If a frog comes into your pond from a local lake, they can easily carry parasites with them, which can infect your fish. So you have to watch."

Luis Barroso is also a member of the Orlando Koi and Pond Club. He has three ponds and has devoted much of his backyard to his Koi. He says he never planned for his hobby to take on such an extreme form.

"I thought I was going to stay with 4- or 5-inches wide Koi," Barroso said.

But now, Barosso has moved on to fish that are 26- to 28-inches long. He has around 35 Koi in all.

The Koi's potential for growth sometimes designates them as less than desirable candidates for pets in the long term.

"People get fish, their fish outgrow their ponds or they decide they no longer want to keep these fish," Melz said. "The pond is too much work for them so we're always trying to find homes for pond quality fish."

There is no Koi rescue organization, per se, but Melz says the fish find homes through the extensive Koi club network across the country.

More often than not, Koi lovers say all it takes is one fish to get people hooked.

"I compare it with golf because I have several friends that take golf as a hobby and more or less the way they talk and act is like an addiction," Barroso said.

"It's a sickness," Melz said. "It's a disease that develops."

"AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) is lucky -- they have a 12-step program," Melz said. "We don't have that because we goad each other on."

Yet for those wishing to dip their toe in the water, Koi enthusiasts say the hobby doesn't have to be enormously expensive. A decent starter pond could cost around $3,000 or $4,000.

Japanese Garden koi fish

The koi fish collection at Cal State Long Beach's Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden is being replaced after a virus recently killed off the garden's entire koi population.

Approximately 300 koi were killed by the koi herpesvirus (KHV). The fish contracted the virus between October and January.

KHV is a pathogen that affects koi and common carp. It cannot be transmitted to humans, nor can it be cured. According to the garden's director, Jeanette Schelin, garden employees were unaware of the virus during the first half of that period, she said.

Employees noticed symptoms of an often-deadly gill fluke parasite in some fish prior to the garden's annual koi auction in October. The fish were given treatments and the garden did not auction off its infected koi, Schelin said.

At the auction, adult koi were auctioned off for $50 to $300 each. Schelin estimated the total value of the deceased koi population to be no more than $30,000.

"There's just no good way to put a value on it," Schelin said.

The fish were expected to improve within a few weeks after the auction, but "they were still dying," Schelin said.

"It wasn't consistent with a parasitic outbreak," she said, noting that the garden treats koi for parasites every year. "It's kind of like treating your cat or your dog for fleas," Schelin said. "It happens."

Some koi were then sent to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach for tests before being sent to UC Davis. Although the koi did have the gill fluke parasite, they also had KHV, Schelin said.

"That was very bad news for us because the koi herpesvirus is a very deadly virus," Schelin said. "It usually has a 100 percent mortality [rate]."

By mid-January, the garden had lost all of its koi.

To make sure the pathogens did not get into any other body of water, garden employees were told by UC Davis to disinfect the fish and dispose of them in plastic bags.

The ages of the koi ranged from young fish of 7 to 8 months, to adults that have been at the garden for years. According to Schelin, it is not uncommon for the garden's koi to live for 20 to 30 years.

"The biggest concern is how do you stop another outbreak of this," Schelin said. "How do you get this disease out of the pond?"

This is made harder by the fact that the source of KHV in the pond has not yet been determined.

According to Schelin, there are three possible explanations.

One is that birds could have carried the virus while traveling from pond to pond. Another is that someone could have secretly thrown their own koi into the pond, infecting the others. People often purchase koi and later realize they are unable to take care of them, Schelin said.

The most likely explanation for the disease infestation, according to Schelin, could be due to fish that are donated to the garden. When the garden receives these donated fish employees keep them separated from the other fish for 30 days, monitoring them to make sure the fish are healthy before introducing them to the rest of the koi population.

The pond was drained and sterilized and, in the future, the garden may implement a testing procedure to check the koi.

In order to harvest a new koi population, approximately 200 baby koi were purchased two weeks ago, each about 6 inches in length. According to Schelin, they were bought at a discounted price for about $1,000 through UC Davis and a Northern California company. According to Schelin, UC Davis uses the company as a test site, which certifies that the koi are disease-free.

The garden has also ordered a batch of 100 "juvenile" fish, which are considered "teenagers" and are 10 to 14 inches long. This batch will cost around $7,000, Schelin said.

"We never know until we actually get the bill," she said.

The garden will receive a total of 30 boxes of fish, shipped as if they are "'FedExed' from Japan to the United States," Schelin said.

"It was pretty exciting to open up those boxes," Schelin said of the first batch of replacement koi to arrive at the garden.

Due to budget constraints, the garden will not buy adult fish, which typically cost $500 to thousands of dollars each, Schelin said. She said it takes five to seven years for koi to mature, which accounts for the higher price of the older koi.

"Keeping koi is labor intensive," Schelin said. "You can't ignore them for even a day."

The koi are being purchased using money from the garden's emergency "rainy day funds," Schelin said. Members of the Friends of the Japanese Garden program, who each pay a fee for joining, also hold fundraisers and donate money.

The Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden is currently accepting donations. According to Schelin, they have raised about $1,000 so far for the koi.

"They are a symbol of our garden," Schelin said. "They add so much color and beauty to the garden."

She said thousands of people visit the garden a week, making the koi sociable.

Our latest koi contest

Here at koi, we love everything koi. We love koi paintings, koi drawings, koi figurines, koi kites, koi t-shirts, koi tattoos, koi toys, koi books, koi wood carvings and , of course, real living and breathing koi fish. So if you’re out and about and come across anything related to koi fish, snap a photo of it and email it to us. Besides being eternally grateful, we’ll put it on our website. Plus, everyone who sends us a koi photo will be entered in a drawing to win a new koi outfit from our latest collection before it hits the stores. Email your photos to for your chance to win. Please be sure to include your name, address, phone number and garment sizes with your entry.

QUARANTINE PROCEDURE FOR NEW KOI

Every so often, you will likely buy a new koi (or goldfish), but how do you know that this fish isn’t carrying any harmful diseases that could spread to your other koi? Now more than ever, it is important to make sure new fish are disease free, quarantining new fish before adding them to your pond should be considered mandatory.

WHY QUARANTINE?
There is more than one reason to quarantine new fish, not only do you want to protect your existing koi collection from any possible disease or parasite that the new fish may carry, but you also need to make sure they are in good shape before introducing them to your pond, Here is a basic guideline for properly quarantining your new fish before adding them to your pond. Most imported koi will have been very stressed during their journey from fish farm or breeder to your pond. In most cases, they will have been caught and moved from ponds to holding tubs, sorted then packed (crowded) in boxes, put on 1 or more flights for up to 36 hours, transported some more and then finally released into the retailers tanks – all without being fed. After all this stress, the fish are very susceptible to bacteria and parasite infestations. A good retailer will allow the fish time to recover from all the stress endured on their journey before selling them, however, many just want to sell them as quickly as possible before any problems occur. Plus once you have a quarantine tank set-up, you can always use it as a hospital tank or even to raise baby fish.

WHAT TYPE OF TANK TO USE FOR QUARANTINE

Quarantine tubs don’t have to be elaborate, but they do need to be reliable. You can many different types of tubs or tanks - large aquariums, livestock water troughs, 45 gallon plastic drums and ‘kiddy’ pools will all work as long as they haven’t been used to carry and harsh chemicals that could leach back into the water during quarantine. As well, filters don’t need to be very complex either. A large sponge filter or pre-filter like our HydroClear filters will work well. For larger tanks, pressurized filters are ideal. The most important thing to remember is that the filter must be ‘cycled’ (see below).