Seek New Fun, Breed a Koi

Sometimes we are seeking a new fun in life, may be a sort of change for us and our kids, if you could make your kid love it then you have helped him to learn a profitable hobby, It is breeding a koi. Do you know much about it? Let me tell you some factoids about. A koi is a carp added to it some colors by the Japanese. Its origin was from China/Japan/ S.E. Asia but most now are from USA and it is the most affordable too. Its maximum size is three feet and up, when it reaches nearly a foot, it starts having some great colors. Koi varies in colors, mainly koi is white, black, red, yellow, blue or cream or a mix of two or more of these colors in harmony patterns, no limit for the combinations of colors for koi nor to the charming appeal could it have. It can survive in outdoor ponds. You can say it’s always hungry and its food is koi pellets with color additives, newly hatched brine shrimps can be a food too, peas, lettuce, watermelons, trout, bread, well they eat various food, though they like eating plants they find in their water, unfortunately they eat water lilies. For a baby koi, you would feed around 5 times a day in the first few months.

A koi spawns thousands of eggs during spring to summer time, when water warms up; these eggs incubation period is varying from 2 to 5 days depending on the temperature, they should be separated from adults to prevent them from being eaten. If you really got interested in breeding a koi you should know how to give them the best environment they would live in, take good care of their water! Their water should be changed weekly, the water should be fresh and also it should be aerated using a water pump. Also, it is not favorable to leave gravels in the pond, but if you do then stir it up at least every 8 months to clean the gravel. But why all that care about their water, simply cause an expensive fish can loose its color in a period of some months cause of poorly conditioned water!

You can mix some goldfish with koi; they can survive other than the unfair compete for feeding.

If going to take this step and breed a koi takes care of the feeding too, koi nearly doesn’t eat in spring, well the overfeeding also presents a threat to koi. Also, birds during morning, owls during night present threats to koi. Koi needs a lot of room; you can’t keep in tanks it grows too big for a tank. Expect the children coming from different blocks around you to watch your koi, so take care of this too by a fence may be to protect your koi and the children, koi love to jump up out of their pool too.

How much does it cost? Well, it depends on size and age of the koi, still some other factors affect the price, but on the base of the price, a small koi would cost a few dollars increasing to hundreds of dollars with bigger sizes. Taking in mind that quality koi will produce a quality offspring, also age affects breeding, too small koi won’t breed and too big won’t too.

Then I suppose you will need some equipment for breeding koi, like, aquarium air pumps, aquarium filters, aquarium water test kits, aquarium, shovels, yard sticks, buckets.

Does it seem to be a fuss breeding a koi, well ya it isn’t easy to create a quality koi, simply less than half of the baby koi survive to be adult and can breed! You have to expect that. But I suppose it is still interesting to farm a koi and when you can feel it when you spend sometime beside your koi pool watching their wonderful varying patterns of colors and they are growing by passing of days in front of your eyes, still encouraging your kid to a new profitable hobby, may be you trained your koi to eat out of your hand too, some use their koi for shows! I suppose it’s worth it.