Sometimes you just can't help yourself

[addy1]

That is part of the fun seeing how they turn out.

 

[CountryEscape]

Very neat koi. I'd never heard of a "row of missing scales" like this fish has. I hope someone with more knowledge will let us know why it is missing a row of scales. There is "doitsu", which is scaleless/mirror, "matsuba" which means a pine cone pattern or net-like pattern. The color yellow is called "ki" (sounds like 'key' I think). Hopefully Larkin or KoiGuy will see this post and help you out to identify this fish. I'm still trying to learn.

 

[blessedfamily]

Beautiful I love it..and yellow is my favorite color.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

I found some more yellow koi today - at Walmart, of all places. I hate buying fish from them because it just encourages the store to continue carrying live pets (and they simply don't have a clue how to maintain anything with special needs - they assume if it swims, throw it in luke-warm tap water and it should survive)... but I digress... They actually had several koi with distinct yellow colorations, but this guy stood out to me as having the richest, most pure color. Others either had definite orange spots showing through (which could lead to the entire fish turning orange later), or a lot of white/platinum coloration (which I was afraid would wash out the yellow as they grow). So now he is in the tub with my other koi, who is happy to have company other than the rosies. Now to see how their colors turn out over the course of the Summer...

 

[j.w]

Cute little yellow fellow!

 

[addy1]

Nice color, and I bet that little guy is happy with its new home.

 

[CountryEscape]

Woohoo, another fish saved from Wally World! That's where I got my Shubies last December. They sometimes have some nice fish in there. I've NEVER seen any koi that were worth even looking at in there. Always very blah coloration, if any, and nothing special. You would think they would find someone that has better quality to buy from, but maybe each store buys whatever is more local. Bet they all get their fish from the same places, though. Sometimes they have nice, most of the time not so nice. It's always fun to save one or two from their water.

 

[sissy]

CONGRATS They almost look like they glow and will really show up in the pond .

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Not sure if I mentioned this, but I lost that last yellow koi a few weeks ago. Poor little guy jumped out of the tub overnight. The first koi I posted in this thread was acting like he really missed having company, and I found another koi at walmart that has potential, but he's really still too small to know for sure. He appeared to have a lot more yellow to him while in the tank, but once I got him home next to my other koi, he looks much more orange now. What really caught my eye was the checkerboard pattern of black running down his back. I don't know how much of that will remain as he grows, but it was worth a shot. Unfortunately I have not gotten any pictures of him - I wasn't even sure if he would survive, but he seems to be doing just fine.

Today I scored another beauty at Petsmart... They finally got in their butterfly koi again, and this one stood out. It was nearly impossible to get a decent picture, but I think the two below will give you an idea. The orange around his head is more of a creamcicle color - kind of white-washed. This changes to a more defined yellow behind the head, and has a nice mixture with the white areas. Most striking is the tone of white - it is a brilliant white with a metallic gleam to it. Not quite the same as the platinum whites that I have obtained previously, maybe it has a bit of reddish tint to it? And of course there are those long beautiful butterfly fins with all those black streaks through them. I have a platinum butterfly that has these same types of black streaks, which has made him my absolute favorite koi, but he may lose that title if the yellows really come out in this new fish.

So all three of these koi are in the tub (now with a cover). The walmart fish hasn't been very sociable even though the dragonscale koi tried to be friendly. However the new butterfly cozied right up, and they've been sticking close together all day. Now I'm just waiting for the daytime water temps to hit 70 before releasing them into the pond.

 

[CountryEscape]

Very pretty, Shdwdrgn! Might be all sorts of color changes happen with this fellow! Sounds like he has a new friend, too. Good luck!

 

[CometKeith]

Nice looking fish. Good luck with your new acquisitions!

 

[j.w]

Pretty fish and glad you got a cover for them now. Sorry about losing the other one.

 

[riparks]

I was at Walmart a couple of months ago and there was a 2-3 inch koi choking on a small fish it had tried to eat. It was very obvious that the koi was trying to spit the fish out, but it was stuck. I sent my daughter to find somone to help the koi and a couple of employees came over, looked at it and walked away muttering under their breath. We waited for a few minutes and no one came back so I told my daugher to stand guard and I scooped the koi out and while it was trying to escape the net, the small fish dislodged from it's mouth. We watched the koi for a few minutes and it seemed to be ok.

 

[addy1]

riparks, so glad you helped the little guy, fantastic!
beautiful fish you picked out shdwrgn, it will look great in your pond

 

[Shdwdrgn]

We've repeatedly told managers at our local walmart that we are opposed to the chain selling any live pets. They deal in bulk supplies and are too busy moving products to actually take the time to care for the pets. The last few times we've been in there, half the tanks have had fish dying from dropsy. Whenever we talk to the employees about the situation, some simply don't care (which is probably the common reason for all the problems). The ones who do care have told us that the majority of the fish just die, but the company doesn't care - they just keep sending more fish. We've pointed out to them that fish like the dragon gobies and puffers require brackish water to survive, and not one of them had ever been informed of this. Not that it matters because ALL of their tanks are on the same filtration system, so they couldn't set up special tanks even if they wanted to. We've been told they get in the dragons week after week, and they might sell one, but the rest die every week.

Yeah, we're pretty fed up with their policies, and we try to discourage anyone from buying fish from there. If we do happen to buy one, it always gets a quarantine tank to itself and special treatment to try to nurse it back to to health. Sometimes we succeed.