Page 49 - Koi Net - On-Line Koi Magazine - Issue 6

BUYING TOSAI pattern. This Koi was put in the clients 4,000 gallon
Tim Waddington of Quality Nishikigoi
outlines his views of buying Tosai in
the Spring
The amount of Tosai (1 year old Koi) that get imported
into Europe is crazy, out of all sizes these are by far the
most imported, mainly due to their price and the amount
you can fit into a single box.
Some Tosai we bring in can come with 30 in a box
which when divided into each Koi the freight costs are
small. When compared to 1 Koi in a box there is a big
difference on how much a dealer has to charge.
In the current economy smaller Koi are of course more
affordable, the days when people just walk in from the
Tim Waddington has been street and buy a £10,000 Koi seem very far away and
in the Koi industry for over hardly ever happen anymore, so we have to look at
25 years. Visiting Japan for trying to grow smaller Koi. Some people have always
the first time in 1992 and
has since made the trip done this but for many it’s a new experience. It can be
over 60 times. quite challenging to grow smaller Koi, while they are
very strong and healthy, they are at a stage where you
Tim has judged in many
Koi Shows in Japan and has can ruin them so easily. The wrong food, the wrong
supplied Grand Champions environment can really affect how that Koi develops. I
all over the world. have seen good Tosai ruined in the space of a month, it
does happen and it’s not the fault of the breeder/dealer
etc. Don’t get me wrong, it can be the fault of the dealer
if they try and sell lower quality Koi at the higher quality
IN THE prices, this practise is found out very quickly.
CURRENT We as dealers have to find the very best value Koi and
we need to suit it to our client base. In current times we
ECONOMY cannot afford to have mass amounts of high quality Koi
swimming around on the off chance someone might
SMALLER come in and buy them, yes we will have some stocks
FISH ARE OF but not hundreds. The budget is just not there for
clients. I have sold Tosai in the past for £1,500/£2,000
COURSE not a problem, but now people are really trying to focus
on value, finding good Koi at the right price isn’t easy
MORE but possible.
AFFORDABLE We sold a fantastic Shintaro Showa to a client for
around £200.00. It was a very nice Koi with a great
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pond with very good filtration, high quality food and
around 12 other Koi. In early 2013 it went on to win
Baby Champion at the Winter Koi Show – for £200.00!
So it is possible to get good Koi on a lower budget, you
just need to be a little more fussy, and as dealers do we.
I travel to Japan regularly and while it’s a costly trip, and
I could just have rang contacts in Japan to send me
pictures of Koi, I feel it’s vital to my business to spend
the money to actually go out and pick the Koi I want to
buy. This is beneficial to my customers and I hope it’s
beneficial to Quality Nishikigoi. This way all the high
class Koi should be the best I could possibly find.
Young Koi do need a lot of care, they can be grown very
fast at this stage and can go through massive amounts
of food. This for me is one of the main things when
growing smaller Koi, the food.
When buying expensive small Koi please make sure you
feed a good food, most dealers will have a range of Koi
foods going from cheap to expensive, they should
advise you the best food for the job, we have our own
range and we know exactly what diet to feed the Koi we
YOUNG KOI sell. It’s in our interest to make sure our clients’ Koi do
CAN BE as well as they possibly can. A £150.00 Tosai which
GROWN VERY loses its colour in 2 months is not going to give a
customer confidence in buying more, we must be able
FAST AND GO to give the best advice.
THROUGH The other thing with smaller Koi, say up to 40cms is that
the space needed to grow them isn’t overly important. A
MASSIVE smaller water space is often better than some huge
pond. You will find that in a smaller environment with
AMOUNTS OF good filtration and regular water changes – and good
FOOD quality food (sorry to keep bringing food up but I believe
it’s so important) the Koi will grow very fast. The idea
with a smaller growing system is that you should have a
larger pond to move them into, without that facility it’s
very difficult to keep the Koi growing as they should.
It is also wise to only grow the same size Koi. In Japan
they never mix smaller Koi together, all the Tosai get
grown in one mud pond while the 2 year old Koi get
grown in another, same with 3 year olds. It is not really
until a Koi is Yonsai (4 years old) that they get mixed.
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