Breeding Koi: Knowing Your Pets’ Past And Future

« « Koi Care: Helpful Tips In Preventing Heron Theft | Koi Filter: The Filtration You Need For Your Pond » »

Breeding Koi: Knowing Your Pets’ Past And Future

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

The Koi (or “Nishikigoi” in Japan) are becoming quite popular in the United States for breeding. But only a few know where and how they came to be. The first Koi were produced by breeding the Asian carp and the German carp. After being selectively bred for years, different variations in color and pattern started to show up. The earliest patterns in color were recorded in the year 1805. To this day, thousands and thousands of color combinations and variations can be seen.

Popular colors include white, yellow, black, silver, orange, blue, red and green. There are endless possibilities of combination of patterns. Each Koi have their own name, based on their pattern and color. The favorite types may differ, depending on the location and country.

These fish are being raised for sale in various countries, such as Singapore, Japan, Israel, and in warmer states in the U.S.. The Koi can be purchased at many of those local pet stores. If there’s no stock available, they can be ordered. When you choose to order, the advantage of this is that the buyer will have more options, since they don’t have to pick from the stock on hand. The down side of this is that the purchaser won’t be able to pick the specific Koi that they want to have.

Unlike most of the other fish out there, they will continually grow until they’ll reach the maximum size of their breed (no matter where they’re being placed in). The infant ones are in lengths of 3 inches, while the largest can reach up to 3 feet or even more! They commonly grow around 2 feet long. They have been known to live up to 30 years old under the right conditions, the oldest of which lived up to 233 years!

The Koi are classified as omnivorous fish, feeding on both meat and plants. This determines the versatility of their diet. They will eat almost anything that you feed them, and it doesn’t matter if its good for them or not. The owner should be the ones to control what and how much they eat, as they have no ability to judge what’s good or not for their diet, and the amounts that they should be taking on a daily basis as well. The best treats for them are those natural kinds of food, such as tadpoles and earthworms, and other treats like bread, lettuce, veggies and fruit.

Owners should take necessary precautions when feeding them with corns, grapes and beans, as these food contain an outer casing, which can't be properly digested by the fish if eaten by them. The outer casings should be removed completely before feeding those to them.

The Koi are non-aggressive types of fish, which means that they’re capable of mingling with other fish like the comet and goldfish. Quick eaters as they are, they have the tendency to eat smaller fish, and this could be a problem! They don’t have teeth, that’s why they can be fed through their owner’s hand (which is a great kind of past time for the Koi owners as well)!). For this, Koi breeding is really a fun hobby for fish lovers out there!

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.