Good question.

Been doing lots of reading about this, and it hasn't become easier.

Best advice in the beginning is to find a place you "trust". Inspect the
premises, look at water quality, are the fish sulking or coming towards you,
jumping towards you, that kind of thing. If possible, take a more
experienced ponder with you. You can get rather lost in all this tosai,
nisai and tagegoi hoopla.

Still, even then it's a (sorry for language) crapshoot. Some ponds/stock
tanks can look dirty, but that can be the result of adding clay/minerals in
the morning (you of all people should appreciate that statement :-p )

I have always only bought "baby" koi, 3 inches, one year old. One of the
joys of my pond is seeing them grow. The largest ones are now 45 to 50 cm
after 3 to 4 years. That's no way "jumbo" but they will still keep on
growing, especially whilst I will continue to feed (moderately) this winter.

Some of these koi certainly don't look "show quality", but they survived all
my mistakes, so they are staying. Sure, I see some gorgeous fish at the
dealers, and it's very hard to not say "ah, just one more".

My most expensive fish cost me 150 EUR/USD. And it's strictly speaking not
even a koi, it's a magoi. Next to that I paid 100 UKP for an ochiba
shigure (I didn't even know the name at the time, just thought "cool fish!)
and she is everyones favorit. We named her Betty, and she turns out to be
male :blush: (needless to say, the magoi grows like crazy)

Small koi are a good test for your water quality (they are more vulnerable
to most diseases in general, except for lack of oxygen), and if they do
well, it's almost certainly a good sign for the water conditions. Trick
is to keep these conditions the same when they grow up to be 15 inch pigs.

It's not just a question of money or being skint, but I just read a thread
about a guy spending a months income on a tancho, only to see the red spot
go away after a few months. This could be genetical, this could be water
conditions (even things like KH can have a serious impact on this), he was
thinking to use a lawyer against the koi outlet... that's the kind of stuff
I never ever want to get into. I rather spend money on improving water
conditions, and I don't think I enjoy my "cheap" koi any less than the
guys/girls with a small fortune in their ponds. (Imagine Mr. Heron seeing
your prized kohaku as a light snack )

What I also did this year is buy 3 three inchers from the same tank (all
looked exactly the same) in May. Same conditions, same feeding, and still
one grew to 10 inch, one to 12 inch, one to 9 inch. So this sounds like
the genetical make-up is quite important too.

Right, just babbling... I'll finish with "if you don't know the bloodlines,
have a full understanding of potential, skin quality, the way some varieties
change color & pattern each year, you should never spend silly money on a
koi".

Finally, the book that provided me with the most "understanding" about
buying koi, why they cost what they cost etc was Koi Kichi by Peter
Waddington.

Theo

"BenignVanilla" schreef in bericht
...
I was wondering how the porgs here select their koi? Now I am talking
about
the under $20.00 fish that us real people can afford. *laugh* What I am
getting at here...We bought 4 Koi from a Smart Pet place that I probably
shouldn't mention, and they had Koi in two different sizes, say lik 6
inchers and 3 inchers. The price difference was like double for the larger
models. We opted for the smaller ones, assuming they would grow quickly.
We
dumped them into Orange Pond and didn't seem them again for months. Once
we
got the water cleared up, we were amazed. Our little Koi, had grown up to
be
less little Koi. Now, I think a few are nearly 8-9 inches long judging by
the looks.

So it seems, by small treat well is a good mantra.

Any thoughts?

Post amongst yourselves.

--
BV.
WebPorgmaster
www.IHeartMyPond.com
Help Support IHMP by shopping at Amazon.com thru our associates link,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/re...me/dcg8118-20.