Koi Keepers

How many koi could a koi keeper keep if a koikeeper could keep koi? Most koikeepers would gladly keep Kazillions of these colorful creatures!

Koi are ornamental domesticated varieties of the common carp Cyprinus carpio. If you travel to Japan and tell your friends that you love koi, they might invite you to eat the dull gray fish that inhabits the waters of the islands: In Japanese, the word koi simply means carp. But tell them you appreciate nishikigoi and the koi keepers will lead you and your camera to the pond in the garden. This article is about nishikigoi, and uses the English word koi to refer to the beautiful fish.

While a Chinese book of the Western Jin Dynasty (4th century) mentions carp with various colors, koi breeding is generally held to have begun around the 17th century in the Niigata prefecture of Japan. Farmers working the rice fields would notice that some carp would be more brightly colored than others, capture them, and raise them (when normally the brighter colors would doom the fish to be more likely eaten by birds and other predators).

By the 19th century, a number of koi color patterns had been established, most notably the red-and-white kohaku, but the outside world did not become aware of the degree of koi development until 1914, when the Niigata koi were exhibited in Tokyo, and some of them presented to Crown Prince Hirohito. At that point, interest in koi and koi keeping exploded throughout Japan and later worldwide. Koi are now available to koikeepers in most pet stores, with higher quality fish available from specialist koi dealers.

Koi varieties are distinguished by coloration, patterning, and scalation. Butterfly koi, developed in the 1980s and notable for their long and flowing fins, are actually hybrids with Asian carp, and not considered true koi.

Koi fish are omnivorous, they eat a variety of animal and plant foods. Most manufactured koi foods available in todays market are nutritionally balanced in order to keep your koi healthy and happy. The majority of specialty koi food will float which encourages the koi fish to come to the surface to feed, this allows you to enjoy your fish up close and gives you a chance to inspect them for any damage or disease before it can get out of control.