Understanding the koi’s digestive system The more we know and understand about certain aspects of our life, the more we [...]

Interpreting Koi Food Labels As consumers, we’ve never had access to as much information abut our purchases than we do [...]

Koi Food – Functional Ingredients A koi food is formulated to satisfy many different demands – performing a host of [...]

Koi Nutrition: How different ingredients are used to formulate different types of food. Our koi depend upon us for a [...]

Koi Nutrition: 1. Back to Basics. Koi are just like any other fish or animal in that they have particular [...]

Koi Food Types. Fried, scrambled, poached, or boiled (soft or hard). Eggs are such a convenient, tasty and versatile food [...]

Koi Food and Diets Koi and all other fish are just like us in that they have particular dietary requirements. [...]

Koi Growth I remember at school, when asked to write a story as part of an English exercise, immediately asking [...]

How to feed your koi. Feeding time is arguably the most enjoyable koi keeping activity. It brings koi and koi [...]

How to enhance your Koi’s colour The ornamental aquatic hobby exists because of our enchantment with the striking beauty of [...]

How feeding can affect water quality Every environment shares problems if the inputs into the system are out of balance [...]

Koi Food Innovations When we read terms such as ‘innovative’ or ‘technologically advanced’, we expect to hear them used with [...]

Feeding for Health The two most widely debated topics amongst koi keepers are nutrition and filtration. This is very understandable [...]

Feeding for Growth. Living in a world where biggest is best and quantity dominates quality, it stands to reason that [...]

Feeding for koi colour Feeding koi should not simply be regarded as satisfying their hunger. It is an opportunity. We [...]

Utsuri, Bekko, Koromo and Shusui In the same way that many hundreds of different varieties of dogs have been bred, [...]

Sources of Koi Just as China is renowned for its tea, Italy for its pasta and France for its wine, [...]

Metallic Koi varieties Metallic Koi are probably the most eye-catching of all koi varieties. Whether it is their resemblance to [...]

Koi. What are they and where have they come from? Koi is an abbreviation of nishikigoi, a general term given [...]

Koi Lingo One of the many challenges of keeping koi, besides keeping them fit and healthy can be understanding and [...]

The Big Three Koi Varieties – Go Sanke Go Sanke is the collective name given to describe the 3 most [...]

Ghost Koi A new variety of koi appeared in the trade in the early 1980’s under the intriguing name of [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: W-Z Water Quality A short entry in an encyclopaedia cannot do the topic of water quality justice. [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: U-V Undergravel Filtration A method of filtration that is perhaps best-suited to aquaria where maintenance is quite [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: T Tapeworm Tapeworms are one of the largest parasites to affect koi. Living in the intestine or [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: Q-S Quarantine: Quarantine is the procedure where newly imported or purchased Koi are subjected to a period [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: P Parasite Just as a predator attacks and eats its prey, and a scavenger lives off dead [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: O Omnivore. A term given to describe an animal that eats both animal and plant material. Inheriting [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: N Netting (Noun) Netting is a must to prevent koi being attacked, injured or removed by predators, [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: M Malachite Green Malachite is an intense dark green dye that is widely used in the treatment [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: L Lateral Line The lateral line is similar to a dot-to-dot picture, where the dots found along [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: J & K Jumping An activity that koi keepers would rather not see in their koi. Very [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: H & I Hormones From the Latin word for ‘arouse’. Hormones are regulatory substances that are released [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: G Genetics Genetics is the science of inheritance. Although the production of artificially occurring ornamental fish started [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: F Fibreglass Considered to be the ultimate way of finishing of a koi pond, fibreglass offers many [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: E Easter Traditionally, Easter is the time that signals the start of the pond season in the [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: D D is for Depressing! The majority of the D’s seem to be negative – disease, dropsy, [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: C Carp This is where it all started. A dull, black/grey food fish with a natural geographical [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: B Bacteria (Plural of bacterium) We can’t see them, smell them or hear them yet their existence [...]

Koi Keeping A-Z: A Aeration. Aeration is vital in the artificially stocked koi pond to maintain sufficient oxygen concentration in [...]

Niigata – The Place Niigata is respected worldwide as the centre of the koi keeping hobby. The Niigata Prefecture is [...]

Niigata – The Koi Farmers Every single koi that is produced in Niigata, Japan, is the culmination of generations of [...]

Niigata – The Koi When travelling through Niigata in search of koi to bring back to the UK, it’s not [...]

Niigata. The Birthplace of Koi. Some of the world’s greatest discoveries were discovered quite by accident. Penicillin, X-Rays, Teflon and [...]

Koi From Different Origins. I want to purchase some more koi for my pond as I haven’t bought any for [...]

Showing Koi for the first time: Q: I want to exhibit my koi but don’t know where to start? I [...]

Clubs and Societies One of the many appeals of fishkeeping is that it can be enjoyed by such a wide [...]

Golden rules for choosing koi and pond fish. Most pondkeepers have experienced some problems or have heard of other people’s [...]

Buying koi – From here, there or anywhere? I am relatively new to koi keeping and only have a few [...]

Farming Koi for a living  – Part 5. Growing on fry, harvesting and selling Last month we had successfully spawned [...]

How to Farm Koi for a living.  Spawning koi and raising fry – Part 2 It’s now time to get [...]

Koi Farming 3. How do you farm koi? – Part 1 By now you will have spent many thousands of [...]

Step 2: What do you need to farm koi? I have farmed koi on a hi-tech farm that was already [...]

Step 10 – Breeding Koi. Having followed the previous 9 steps to successful koi keeping, the final step – koi [...]

Step 9: Understanding the Koi’s Calendar. Koi have a fascinating physiology that responds to changes in their environment in a [...]

10 steps to koi keeping success: avoiding and confronting common problems. The vast majority of problems in a koi pond [...]

Step 7 – Filtration. Installing a filter is the price we have to pay for wanting to keep koi in [...]

Step 6 – Food and feeding. As koi keepers, feeding koi is one of our most enjoyable activities. It represents [...]

Step 5: Disease – Diagnosing and Treating Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that disease will inevitably affect every [...]

Step 4 – Maintaining health and preventing disease. In the 4th part of the 10 steps to successful koi keeping [...]

Step 3 – Koi Husbandry. Good husbandry skills are an essential part of successful koi keeping and may involve less [...]

Step 2. Providing Koi with the conditions that they require. Having established the environmental requirements for koi in step one [...]

Step one. Creating the perfect pond environment. We should never lose sight of the fact that koi are living organisms [...]

Everything you need to know about breeding koi and pond fish Perhaps after keeping and growing koi successfully, the next [...]

Each Christmas, with only a few days before Christmas Day, supermarkets are absolutely packed and so are our trolleys...

As koi grow into the size of a pond and mature, they may try to breed. What is possible or advisable in a pond?