How to raise koi so they grow fast: overseas breeding experience is worth learning from
Overseas Stories
Compiled from foreign media on January 7: In Japan,koiare popular for their beautiful colors,
and more and more people are starting to keep koi and enter them in various "beauty contests."
In recent years, the price of koi has soared, and a single one can even sell for hundreds of thousands of US dollars.
Koi keepers bring out their most precious koi to enter competitions.
At a koi beauty contest in Tokyo, judges in suits holding notebooks walk along a street filled with koi.
These koi are colorful, in pearl white, bright red, deep blue and golden yellow.
Isamu Hattori from the Japan Carp Breeding Association says the carp's curves account for 60% of the competition score,
color accounts for 30%,
and the final 10% is what Japanese people call "Hinkaku," a concept that is harder to explain, and can be described as the fish's appeal or "aura."
Mikinori Kurikara, a koi keeper in Tokyo, says: "We take care of them every day like our own children, so they grow up healthy."
"This work is not easy; everything matters, including water quality and food."
About 200 years ago, in the mountains near Niigata in northwestern Japan, villagers began breeding colorful koi.
Later, this craze swept Japan and spread to other parts of Asia.
Yutaka Suga, a professor at the University of Tokyo, says: "In China, koi are especially popular; this is a concept of getting rich, symbolizing people climbing upward."
Today, 90% of Japan's koi are exported. According to data from Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, koi exports reached a record 295 tons in 2016.
Hattori, president of the koi association, says: "A two-year-old koi can sell for 30 million yen (about 1.72 million yuan), while ten years ago it was less than one-tenth of this price."
Chinese boss Yuan Jiandong is a koi enthusiast. He says: "This is a way of consuming; owning koi is not just to prove your wealth. When you see these beautiful fish, you forget all kinds of stress."
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