Koi or Goldfish???

My wife's cousin has two ponds, one 20x40 and the other about 10x15 on his
farm. He went down to a local pet store and found out when the next batch
of feeder gold fish were going to come into the store. He went back and
bought about 100 of them to put in the ponds. Sure he lost quite a few.
But the majority of them lived. And about every five years he has to have a
fish "give away". So they do quite well! And are CHEAP. Most will get a
pretty orange and are well worth the .10 cent investment.



"Ed J" edj22NO wrote in message
...
I have a farm pond about 75 feet in diameter. I had largemouth bass and
bluegills
in it till this past winter. There was a major die-off and I have not
seen
any fish this
season. I am assuming that the water is fouled with low oxygen at the
bottom (8 ft)
and the fish died off there when there was about 2 foot of ice this past
winter.
I have a lot of algae floating on the surface and a LOT of bullfrogs this
year. I
ran a water pump and put the intake hose at the bottom of the pond. The
water
was pretty foul smelling coming out of the pump.

I will probably have to get an air pump and run a air hose to the bottom
to
circulate the water and aerate it. After that, I would like to get some
type
of goldfish. I have seen most Koi are rather expensive. The 'common'
goldfish is very cheap in comparison.

What is the difference between the 'common' goldfish and koi?

--
Ed J edj22 @ attglobal . net

Ed J wrote:

Thanks for the answers.....


Ed J




There seems to be a lot of information and misinformation about the
difference between Koi and goldfish. I want to add my $.02 worth, because
I have spent the last 15 years with both in my ponds. I am skipping all
the mumbo-jumbo about species, etc because it has already been said, and
I don't know that stuff anyway. I can only go on personal experience.

For one, it sounds like you are trying to get some kind of natural
balance to a dead pond, and are not interested in the 'pet' quality of
the fish. To that, I say go for the gold.

Goldfish are a LOT cheaper.

Goldfish are a lot hardier than the Koi. Whenever I have had a problem
with the pond, the Koi will go first.

The Goldfish breed like sex-starved teenagers. We have never seen a Koi
fry.

Koi will live to 70 years, goldfish will live to ~ 7 years.

Koi will continue to grow throughout their lives, goldfish will stop when
they have reached some kind of God's formula of pond size vs. fish size.

Koi develop personalities more than goldfish. In our whole pond with
about 70 fish, the only ones that we have named are the Koi. In fact, we
are moving at the end of the month, and guess which fish we are
relocating?

Hope that helps.

Ed J wrote:

What is the difference between the 'common' goldfish and koi?

Found several Koi FAQ's

http://www.pondarama.com/koi.html

/\/\ike
Chagoi
http://ourkoipond.com