How Koi Become So Expensive?

Colourful Koi in the pond.

Koi one of the most expensive fish in the world. Maybe not all of us aware about it, however the most expensive koi ever sold worth 2.2 million dollars in today’s money! Keeping koi is not an easy job, while breeding koi will be twice as hard. If you ever wonder, how this fish become so expensive?

Like many other expensive pets, koi with high values are not originally from the wild species. They actually specially breed for certain qualities to meet few standards in koi classifications. Koi or also known as “nishikigoi”, are coloured varieties of Amur carp (Cyprinus rubrofuscus) that specifically breed for decorative purposes. Koi are distinguished by its colouration, patterns, and scales. Their beautiful colours varies from white, black, red, yellow, blue, and cream. One of the most popular koi known as Gonsake, which is the mixed of Kohaku, Taisho Sanshoku, and Showa Sanshoku varieties.

Kohaku - the most famous type of Koi.

Bekko - yellow koi with black markings.

Kinginrin - metallic colour scales types or known as "gold and silver scales". 

Koi is actually the carp species originated from Central Europe and Asia. However they had been domesticated to produced natural colour mutation for decorative purposes in China more than thousand years ago, and spread to all other part of the world. Today Koi more popular in Japan and there are koi enthusiast almost in many countries with Koi competition every year.

To produce beautiful Koi, its need to be carefully breed. In the wild Koi will quickly revert to its natural colouration within few generation. That’s why, beautiful Koi, only can be achieved through selective breeding by professional breeders. Anyway, no one can tell how the final result can be, it still depend on small probability for the breeders to get the right combination from the breeding process.

Koi farm in Niigata, Japan.

Shōwa Sanshoku (or Showa Sanke) - the black koi with red and white markings.

Some of the Koi Types.

There are few classifications to differentiate the Koi qualities such as colours, size and body shapes, and pattern. There also many varieties produced every year that widen the competition criteria.

There are many things to learn if you are interest to keep Koi as pet, especially if you have intention to compete in Koi competition. Even though carp is generally easy to keep, but it’s different for Koi. Perhaps we can see more details about this wonderful fish in the next articles.

Micro Post: Seahorse

More like a horse than a fish.

Seahorse is a wonderful creature since it resembles a horse while in fact it is a fish. There are 54 species of seahorse most of them found in shallow tropical and temperate water throughout the world. They mainly live in the areas with sea grass beds, estuaries, coral reefs or mangroves. Using its tail, seahorse will bind itself to vegetation to aid it from drift by the currents.

Seahorses’ sizes range from 1.5 to 35.5 cm (0.6 to 14.0 in). Not like any other fish, seahorse is the only species come with neck and tail, but like any other fishes, they have gills to allow them to breath in the water. Seahorse not a good swimmer and spend their whole life in the same small areas, sometimes just few meters cubic areas. They are not suitable for rough current areas and will die if caught in the storm-roiled seas.

Seahorse anatomy.

Hard to identify, seahorse resemble their surrounding.

Tied itself to corals or sea grass.

Previously thought that seahorses mate for life but further observation shows that some species will stay close together for the breeding season, while some species show a higher level of mate fidelity than others. One thing unique about seahorse is the male will get pregnant instead of the female. With the gestation periods will take around two to four weeks in most of species.

Despite of their slow movement, seahorse is voracious eaters and need to continually eating by consuming almost 3,000 or more brine shrimp per day. By sticking themselves to sea grasses or corals with its prehensile tails, they waiting for their prey to get closer and then suck them with its elongated snout.

Beautiful species of seahorse.

Another unique species of seahorse.

Pollution affected the life of this wonderful creature.

They area many other wonderful things about seahorses, because many of them not just be able to change their colours but some of them can make themselves look like their surroundings to avoid their predators and at the same time to increase chances of catching preys. Some of these wonderful species will be highlighted in their own dedicated articles. 

Micro Post: The Sand Tiger Shark

Sand Tiger Shark, the most popular aquarium shark.

The sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus), the most popular shark in the aquariums since it’s doing very well in captivity. Sand tiger shark also known as grey nurse shark, spotted ragged-tooth shark, or blue-nurse sand tiger they inhabits subtropical and temperate waters worldwide. The sand tiger shark rarely attacks human with no confirmed human fatalities.

The size of adult sand tiger shark range from 2 m (6.5 ft) to 3.2 m (10.5 ft) in length while weighing around 91 kg (200.6 lb) to 159 kg (350.5 lb). The shape of its head is pointy and opposed to round, while the snout is flattened with a conical shape. The sand shark has well built body and bulky with its easily seen extends beyond the eyes. They usually swim with its mouth open displaying three rows of sharp-pointed teeth. Besides its docile temperament, it’s become the most suitable shark to use as display in many aquariums.

Sand Tiger Shark with its meal.

Eating their smaller aquarium mate (aquarium in Seoul, Korea).

For their diet, most of their prey creatures are demersal (i.e. from the sea bottom), that consist of crustaceans, squid, skates and small bony fish. They prey also changes according to their stages of life, where when it getting larger they will start to take more benthic prey.

Other special characteristic of sand tiger shark includes the ability of breath air from the surface which allows it to float near the surface with ease. They have small eyes with no eyelids. While during pregnancy their young might eating each other while they still in their mother’s body.

Sharper teeth to easily catch its prey.

Arrays of 3 layer teeth can easily be seen.

As they doing very well in captivity, the sand tiger shark is listed vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. It would be nice if we know more about this gentle creature as they might get closer to your beach. Kindly share if you have any additional information about sand tiger shark in the comment below.

Micro Post: River Lamprey

More like eel than fish, lamprey lack of fins.

European river lamprey (Lampetra fluviatilis), also known as river lamprey or lampern is one type of the lampreys family live in the fresh water in Russia, Scotland, Norway, Finland and other European coastal waters and rivers.

Lampreys are known for their sucker mouth with sharp teeth to attach itself to its prey. The size can range from 25 to 40 cm (10 to 16 in) for the sea-going forms while just to 28 cm (11 in) for the lake forms. Not like any other fish, lampreys lack of paired fins while having sucking disc instead of jaws.

Sucking disc instead of jaws.

There's also North American species.

Lampreys are also anadromous (sea going) same as salmon and only back to the river during the mating seasons. This migration to the spawning areas will take place during autumn and winter. The spawning activity will be active during the spring time, and the adult will die soon after this process.

Even though lampreys look kind of scary with its sucking mouth and eating on flesh of others fish, it should be considered as normal in the nature. Anyway, the introduction of this species into new location (rivers or lakes) might cause unhealthy effect to the balance of the local fish.

Otter enjoying its meal.

Water bird with its catch.

More food for crayfish too.

Do You Need To Shock Your Hand With An Electric Eel To Be a Scientist?

Electric eel is actually a fish.

Not necessarily you need too, but once someone did it, many others will follow. At least one of the researchers Kenneth Catania of Vanderbilt University, a professor of biological science already did to complete his paper, "Power Transfer to a Human during an Electric Eel's Shocking Leap."

Even though the electric eel potentially producing high voltage of electric potential, the current amount still unable to kill bigger animals (including human), anyway this electrical shock enough to make any potential predator runs away.

The electric eel behavior during an attack.

The setup during the experiment by Professor Catania.

The close up of electric eel.

Electric eel is not the only creatures that can produce electricity. One more example of electricity producing fish is electric rays from the order Torpediniformes. In fact these electric rays had been used by Greek for patient during childbirth and operation.

While the experiment by Catania provide an evident of how the electric eel shock works on their predator with its shocking leap. Plus the measurement also provide more details of current flows during the attack.

With the experiments Catania was able to describe many details related to the electric’s eel electric shocking mysteries. Perhaps he also inspires many others to try the experience in the future.