Water Pigs

[Rainblood]

My days off have been few and far between lately. I worked on the garden a bit and played with the koi this morning.
Minus the mosquitos and hot ass sun, it was almost a slice of heaven. It was also too early to drink.

 

[MiggidyMike]

Nice!!!! I wish I had a Koi Pond. One of my Dreams!!! You can post all the koi vids your want. I will watch them all!!


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[Rainblood]

Nice!!!! I wish I had a Koi Pond. One of my Dreams!!! You can post all the koi vids your want. I will watch them all!!


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[Rainblood]

Works better with sound

 

[Rainblood]

 

[eliphant]

Your Koi are massive and look great!! Thanks for sharing

 

[chuck]

Do you sell koi?

 

[Rainblood]

No

 

[Rainblood]

It’s koi hunting season - almost every dealer in the world is in Japan right now as all of the breeders are currently pulling their grow out ponds.

 

[jcook54]

It’s koi hunting season - almost every dealer in the world is in Japan right now as all of the breeders are currently pulling their grow out ponds.

What does this mean? I really like koi but I don't know much about the trade part of the equation. Breeders are gathering is their grow out ponds because they're being hunted, but what's hunting them? I'm thinking Herons or human thieves because they can be really expensive fish.

 

[Rainblood]

So the mecca of koi is Japan. Every spring breeders release thousands of fry into large mud ponds and grow them out for the summer. Once October rolls around - they seine the mud ponds and pull out all of the ~1yo fish (tosai). From the thousands of tosai they seine in - the breeders will keep maybe 2-3% to grow out another year. They cull the rest - most end up as fish food but a good portion goes to the trade market and around the world. Dealers from around the world flock to Japan every October to buy these tosai which typically would be the most affordable fish - they typically range from $100-$1500+ for a 5-7" fish.
Nisai are a 2 year old fish that the breeders have grown out for a 2nd season and of these they keep >1%. These fish are typically more expense and larger 12-14" and range from about $750 - $6k+.
Breeders are only interested in fish that can win shows or fish that will become future breeding stock (oyagoi). Everything else is sold to various dealers around the world.

On the whole - the US gets the lower end fish and this is just based on supply and demand. I know people who have spent $50k on a fish but caring for such an animal requires a lot of knowledge and husbandry skills to keep it at its peak. A lot of rich guys have ruined a lot of fish by not knowing to to properly raise them.

Koi are the ultimately example of cut flower syndrome. They typically peak around 4-5 years of age and this is when you want the colors, conformation and size to come together. And this is very difficult to do - if you grow it too fast you may end up with a crooked fish...too slow and it'll never reach its size potential. The colors may not peak at the same time - you can end up with a muddy white (shiroji) with a finished black (sumi) and and unfinished red (beni). Or you fish can end up male and never really be able to put on length and girth.

All in all the koi hobby is a lot of unicorn chasing and huge egos and stacks of cash. The part that really separates it from the reefing hobby is that when something dies, you more or less know the exact cause. Also there is no propagation and resale. Koi don't breed true meaning that even if you start with a $50k pair of oyagoi - you'd end up with 99% culls.

So koi hunting is just people chasing unicorns

 

[Rainblood]

So this fish made waves about a decade ago and was rumored to be auctioned for ~50k. It was purchased to used as breeding stock.
The photos are ages 5, 6 and 7. But you can see that it peaked at age 5 and started to slowly decline at age 6 and then just about fell apart at 7.
The breeder was interested in the genetics for the variety and that was why the hefty price tag

 

[Jikkermanccini]

So this fish made waves about a decade ago and was rumored to be auctioned for ~50k. It was purchased to used as breeding stock.
The photos are ages 5, 6 and 7. But you can see that it peaked at age 5 and started to slowly decline at age 6 and then just about fell apart at 7.
The breeder was interested in the genetics for the variety and that was why the hefty price tag

View attachment 66312View attachment 66313View attachment 66315

To my inexperienced eyes, it looks beautiful at all stages! The orange in the final pic is a little grody looking though. Super cool to learn about the koi culture.

 

[AWarnick]

very jealous of your piggies...........