I have several butterfly koi, and one born in my pond. The oldest fish in
my ponds is a butterfly, and the one born in the ponds is now 5 years old.
All are over 24 inches, with some approaching 30 inches. They do not follow
the rule that they will only grow to the size of the pond, as well as most
other fish. I took 3 from a ponder that had a 220 gallon preform pond, and
they had grown to almost 24 inches.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html

"Gail Futoran" wrote in message
...
I think I have one of these. My LFS sold me a
pretty shubunkin a couple years ago. It grows
faster than the goldfish/comets/shubunkin it shares
a small pond with, it has a long flowing tail and
barbels. Body size is about 6" (hard to get it to
hold still next to a ruler g). Colors are
predominantly orange and black with some
splotches of white, and a mostly black tail. I
have tried to find more information on these
fish but googling turns up sites that:
1) are mostly commercial, and want me to download
huge JPG files that my relatively slow connection
takes forever to deal with;
2) have really dark backgrounds so my elderly
trifocaled eyes have a hard time reading the black
on dark color background (so I give up g);
3) direct me to a useful FAQ that is -- empty.
I've also done the groups.google.com search but
haven't found useful info. yet.

What I'd really like to know from someone who
has these fish in their pond is:
1) mature size (my largest filtered tank is only 150
gallons) and about how long it takes to get there
(i.e. when do I need to get a new pond ready g)
2) water volume needs (the same as other koi
varieties? - so 1000 gal minimum?)
3) food - they get TetraPond variety sticks, whole
wheat bread, orange slices and any insects they can
catch. Okay or not?
4) any other critical information for someone who
otherwise has only a few goldfish and rosey red
minnows in three smallish ponds (all under 300 gal).

Thanks - Gail
near San Antonio TX Zone 8
(yep, there's a koi retailer not far from me but
I prefer to ask for info. here first)