Sorry I've not been around lately, working 10 and 12 hours a day plus trying to work on the pond just doesn't give much time for anything else!

I have a stupid leak in my pond now, it's half drained, I am currently trying to fix it but I have to wait until the weather get's better to finish. Everything is ready to go! Just need no rain and some warmer temps, fixing leak with LRB. A week and a half ago it was sunny and warm every day, it seems the weather changes when it knows something is up! My poor fish anyhow, that's what I've been doing. Tomorow maybe some rain, a little warmer but friday looks like the day, warmer and sunny. If not, sunday, even warmer and sunny.

I ordered some fish. Here they are, tell me what you all think?

Gin Rin Goshiki


I generally don't like gin rin but I really thought this guy had some potential.

Shusui



I thought this little guy was a very good example of what a shusui should look like, I had to have him! (did I choose right?)

I bid on this guy;




I doubt I get him, but isn't he a strange looking fish? They say it's asagi, but I don't think asagi is metalic and this fish looks metalic.

Scott

(Sure I know need to get the leak fixed before I need more koi, it'll be fixed! I'm Koi Kichi remember I can't help myself!)

Scott, sorry you are having troubles with the pond. Mine is finally all cleaned out I just have to finish filling it and then let it cycle. I want it warmer before I get the goldfish and Koi back out there.

Your new Koi are beautiful.

Scott... poor fella. Bloody pond leak eh? Murphy had to rear his ugly head again.... When I got my contractors to build my pond, they had built over 50ponds b4 mine and never had a leak..... Guess what? My pond leaked at the begining too! (And of all ponds, it had to be MINE!! ) As always.... we'll just have to fix the leak won't we.

OK, now lets get brutal with koi selection...

Gin-rin Goshiki. Personally, I HATE goshiki. Not that I don't like their colour.... they just never work out for me! They've always ended up not the way I'd like them to.... hence the last few have ended up being 'given away'.

This fish however, has a very thick shoulder, thick tail tube and looks like a big head/mouth. Could possibly be a fast grower.... but I've hardly ever seen/heard a goshiki grow to enormous proportions. I know there have been goshiki hitting 80cm, but they are rare..... yours could be one of the 'rare' ones? Pattern wise.... not much to look at really. Would have liked the hi to be either broken up (ni-dan or san-dan would have been nice), or more of an inazuma (lighting) pattern. I suppose, if I got this fish, it would have been because I was hoping it could hit the JUMBO sizes and nothing else... The Gin-rin is not fantastic.

Shusui..... Not had very much luck with these fish buying at a small size either. Personally, I would not pick a shusui that had coloured up at such a small size. Likely to be a male (actually quite certain it is a male). Then the next thing is we hope that the the Hi on the back will keep it's colour. I've bought coloured young fish like that only to have the hi completely fade on me! Then if the Hi stays, chances are it will expand and cover the blue scales on the back... <_< The advice is usually to go for small fish that have Hi not completely coloured up, and the scaled on the back as light blue as possible. As the fish grows and ages, the blue on the scale becomes darker and darker. Ur fish will finish of with very dark grey scales. Fish looks quite clean on the head... so hopefully you'll get a nice clean white head when the fish grows up.

Trick to buying young koi is to take a punt and imagine them 2years down the road. A fish that shows all it's colour and is already 'finished' at such a small size are usually males... and are known as tateshita... "Already rans".

Your third koi would probably have been a locally bred fish... The Japanese would have culled that fish.

It's a mirror carp and probably falls in the "unique koi" category. Don't quite know if it's pretty or it's ugly.... It's definately not an Asagi that's for sure.

If you want to buy small koi, I suggest you go with Kohakus and Sankes.... much more 'stable' fish to start learning how to select young kois to grow up. Sanke's are interesting... Always a challenge to imagine where the sumi will come up or not.

Have fun buying nice koi... AFTER the pond is ready.

cheers
kev

Debi,

I'm glad to hear someone is having a good spring . But I'm so used to working on my pond every spring I guess it just wouldn't be right if something didn't happen to cause me to do more work on it? LOL I honestly look forward to doing stuff to the pond, BUT a leak isn't one of the things I'd say is to exciting. The poor fish!


KoiKev

Thank you for the honesty, that is what I wanted. I wasn't sure if I was picking them right. But here's why I picked the ones I did.

I have been wanting a goshiki, I like the coloring. I don't much care for gin rin, but thought this one was pretty with gin rin. I've been told that in my area goshiki will turn dark because of the water. I'm not one to listen to others on such matters, I want to see for myself. If it does, at least it is gin rin and will show up on the black liner in some sort of way? Plus this is a lighter goshiki, maybe I'll have better luck. I sort of liked the pattern. I agree, it'd have been a lot better if it were broke up. That is what I would rather have. I was hoping though that maybe as the fish grows the color would break up? This time going by what I was told by a koi keeper, he said as they grow the white (for kohoku) gets larger and the colored area stays same size, I was thinking it might be the same with goshiki? Of course I really have no idea. I'm learning.

The shusui;

I love these fish! My large shusui looks funny because his red stripes are short broke up un-even down the sides. This one is exactly what I've wanted. I was hoping that it would stay pretty much like that as it grew. Of course the head could really whiten up nice and then I'd really love it. I'm glad though now that you've told me what really goes on with these fish. So I'll choose better next time.

I do have a little shusui in my pond that has little light red spots on it's sides, not much of them though. His head looks clean like this one I just bought. The mouth though looks like it's wanting to turn red? The sides are a nice sky blue and the scales down the back are uniform but a real dark blue. Do you think this fish will get a nice red stripe down the sides and red pectoral fins? I know it's hard to tell, especially without a picture.

That last fish, it's odd looking isn't it? I'm not sure I really wanted, didn't bid very high.



Thank you for the brutal honesty, I appreciate it. It's best to get the bad and the ugly if that is what one thinks, especially since I am really wanting to learn. Can't learn without it!

Scott

(on my way out the door to work on the leak!)

I feel your pain. I love my water garden, but only want to work with it when I want to, you know when the weather is nice and I have plenty of time. I mortered the rocks on my waterfall last year, but some of it came apart over the winter. I'll have to redo that sometime, but it can wait until I am ready to do it. I hate leaks!

before i sold the house (My old house)
there was a leak in my pond hopefully they won't notice lol.