“Happy” the Cinderella Koi Story

by Ray Jordan (from interviews with Megumi Yoshida photo’s courtesy of Nishikigoi Monthly)

In Japan very, very, few people can afford their own home and have a large enough garden space to permit a regular koi pond. Property and home ownership are very expensive in Japan and the majority of the population lives in small apartments.

However, there are Japanese koi hobbyists that over come this by buying baby koi to grow and enjoy in an indoor aquarium or a small patio fish tank. Most of these tanks are less than 100 gallons with a few being as large as 250 gallons. In fact, complete high tech koi tank systems are sold that include everything necessary to grow baby koi including specialized pumps, filters, UV sterilizers, lights, and other equipment.

In 2002 as a special favor for some customers with koi aquariums and very small koi tanks Mr. Megumi Yoshida (Koi dealer and owner of Nishikigoi Yoshida in Tokyo) bought some three day old "black" showa fry about 1/4 in. long from a Niigata koi breeder named Mr. Sekiguchi. One of Megumi's customers was a local policeman named Mr. Shukuri, that had a 125 gallon koi aquarium. Mr. Shukuri bought about 300 of the tiny Sekiguchi showa babies for a little less than $1 each.

It is the dream of many of these apartment koi hobbyists to buy baby koi and grow them into beautiful competitive show quality koi. This is difficult and very rare to accomplish even with larger facilities. A champion koi is literally one in a million. It is unheard of to accomplish this with one these small apartment aquariums. Then, if you want the ultimate challenge buy tiny fragile koi fry a few days old of a more difficult type of koi to finish  like showa. Showa’s are three colored koi (red, white and black) that tend to develop at different ages rather than all together at the same time. With showa babies maybe a Grand Champion is actually one in ten million.

Koi dealers and breeders in Japan are very supportive with their customers. Dealers & Breeders take special orders for future koi purchases, advise their customers on which koi to buy, how  best to grow, if/when to show, and also when to cull/sell. Breeders and Dealers help take care of their customers’ sick koi and even pick up and transport customers koi to shows. Dealers and Breeders also help customers find new buyers to buy their koi or take them as down payment for better koi. As part of his services Megumi stopped by to advise Mr. Shukuri on which baby showa fry to keep and grow every month for the first six months then every few months until only one very promising baby showa remained in Mr. Shukuri’s aquarium after two years. This special showa was named “Happy” and she was destined to have quite a bright future.

It was decided that this promising young showa must be grown during summers in a mud pond to give it the best chance of realizing it’s potential. So it was taken by Megumi and placed in his mud pond in Niigata. At the end of that summer the mud pond was harvested just five days before the big earthquake which destroyed much of the Niigata koi growing region. If the harvest had not occurred early all the koi in this pond would have perished and that would have been the end of “Happy” and her fairy tale story.

Because the young showa had shown such dramatic improvement during her summer season in the mud pond, it was decided another summer developing in a mud pond was necessary. Megumi found a koi breeder (Yohei Nagasaki of Toyoto City) that agreed to accept “Happy” to grow in one of his mud ponds another season. “Happy” finished beautifully and at the 2005 harvest her colors and skin glowed on a near perfect body shape.

It was decided the showa now had a big chance to compete for a major prize at the 2006 All Japan Combined Young Koi Show in Tokyo. There are 12 sizes at this show and the maximum length is 63 cm. (24.8 in.) It was already very close to this length. It is a big advantage to be at the top of the size group for competition however if a koi grows longer than 63 cm it would be disqualified.

The koi community is fairly small in Japan and word had spread about this special koi grown from a baby fry by a hobbyist. Several large offers had been made to obtain “Happy” and she was finally sold to a prominent hobbyist Dr. Saku a few weeks before the Young Koi show for a nice price. Mr. Shukuri was very happy as he could now afford to buy a larger 250 gallon high tech koi aquarium and try to grow some more special baby koi.

At the 2006 All Japan Young Koi show 1,314 koi were entered. Five koi received votes for Grand Champion by the sixty judges on the first ballot. Happy narrowly lost on the second ballot by only three votes (27 to 30) to the eventual Grand Champion, which was a beautiful Dianichi Kohaku, rumored to have been purchased for $50,000. Happy was awarded Adult Champion that is in fact the 2nd highest award in this particular show.

                Mr. Megumi Yoshida & Mr. Shukuri

“Happy” Adult Champion at 24^th All Japan Young Koi Show, April 2006

Everyone love’s an underdog story like this. No doubt “Happy” has to set a new record for buying the youngest (three days old) and least expensive (less than $1) koi to ever win a top award at an All Japan Show. “Happy’s” breeder (Mr. Sekeguchi), dealer (Mr. Yoshida), original owner, (Mr. Shukuri), grower (Mr. Nagasaki) and new owner, (Mr. Saku) were all very pleased to have been part of this special koi’s journey.

Authors Note: Do not try this with a typical off the shelf 100 gallon aquarium set. The mini koi tank systems used by successful Japanese koi hobbyists are very high tech/expensive. They utilize special filtration technologies, lighting, large daily water changes, and lots of other high tech gadgets in order to try to successfully grow a few tiny koi for a short while until they become too large for their tanks.