I Got Some Koi  − 24 August, 2006

Koi are more well known as pond fish, but I decided to try them in my large tank in my living room since I had heard of people doing so and succeeding. I"ve always loved how Koi look but, here are a few things I learned about Koi:

1. They love to jump. I didn't realize this and thought Koi were known to be calm surface swimmers but not jumpers.
2. They love to kick up dust (substrate to aquarists)
3. They "shed"

The Koi are beautiful though and after my first attempt at 2 smaller Koi that died in 12 hours, I setup my tank again and treated the water and got 10 neon tetras. After 2 weeks, only 1 died and my Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite levels had peaked and come back down. I decided to try with the Koi again.

I got two this time, both about 9 inches long and about 3 pounds in weight. They have been doing well, but the water is filthy with small fibers from the live plants I bought and with food that the Koi aren't eating. I swear they haven't eaten since I brought them home last week.

I started seeing small flecks of what looked like flake fish food, but it turns out that Koi shed their scales as they grow. Intense. I'm beginning to believe the old Chinese myth that Koi are actually Dragon "larva" waiting to swim upstream to turn into dragons. :)

I'm going to do a water change tommorrow and if I can keep the water level down a little, I'll see if they feed. Meanwhile, Here are some pictures of them from a few days after I bought them.

Comments:

kga245 (September 1, 2006. 06:43am)

Who would have thought that Koi could be so coy? :-)

BrianZimm (September 6, 2006. 12:42am)

Update: Koi are still alive and are now eating. I found out that the problem was I had an actinic light bulb in the light hood and the fish were avoiding the surface. I took it out, did a 50% water change and just have the plain aquarium light and they are now eating. Phew!