A picture paints a thousand words ...



This pic was posted in a thread on PFK recently by Koinut, one of their mods and the forum's pond specialist. The OP was asking about keeping koi in tanks, this pic says more than words ever could as to why it shouldn't be done

I asked Koinut if it was ok to post it here and he kindly agreed. The pic is a friend's fish but K says some of his own are almost as big, he posted this one as it has a grown man's arm in it for size comparison I think we can all agree that this is one heck of an impressive fish and certainly shouldn't be kept in a tank

Koi carp.
Common Carp
Mirror Carp.

The british record is in excess of 60lbs. Over 80lbs in europe. Not a fish to be taken lightly.(pun intended).
Needs thought even when adding to ponds.

Great pic Suey.

WOW! He's lovely

JON

Jeeez hes a whopper, i got a lump in my throat when i saw this, s/he is so impressive and it just reminds me of why i love my fish.

Quite a stunner isn't it! Glad you like them Koinut's just posted some more pics of his own fish, apparently the orange one in the OP is a little bigger than the yellow chagoi shown here. He's kindly agreed that these pics can be posted here too He also tells me these pics are from a while back and the fish shown have grown since they were taken ...

They are very impressive fish but definitely not suitable for tanks MrG and myself popped into what we thought was a garden centre selling fish the other week and as we walked in they had a huge pond with a bridge over it full of large koi which took your breath away we then went into the shop and they had vats or what ever you call them full of koi which where for sale so naturally we took a look and at the far end of the shop there where koi just like the ones in the first photo you posted sue they where huge, these fish had a price of £900 wow, the funny thing was as we walked out of the shop past more vats of fish the smaller koi came eagerly swimming over to be fed, so all you could see where lots of little mouths swimming towards us bless they are beautiful fish but think I will stick to my goldfish that unless I win the lottery and can provide a huge koi pond for them well I can dream cant I

We all can! Dyson (an uber large female white koi, she must have been 4 foot, perhaps a bit bigger) went for about £5k I believe. Now housed in a private lake on Holy Island. Good LFS moved her. I went to see her last year when on holiday there.

Size of a bloody shark now! Whole fist can fit inside her mouth - hence the name! Lovely place by the way if ever up in Northumberland and you can beat the tides

A pic of Dyson would be fab - go on holiday again immediately V!

Just to add a bit more info, check out the info from Dr Paula Reynolds in this thread on PFK (I'd copy it here but to be fair it was written on request for PFK so I can't really make off with it!). Makes very good reading:

koi in aquariums