The pond Wednesday afternoon. I decided to kick up my feet, throw out a little koi food, and watch the action.... What else is there to a state of peace and comfort? LP

the damage is a 'split' lip. It does not interfere with his feeding, he is an eating machine Kazzie. He slowly chomps his way through everything you give and patiently waits for a little bit more! The split hasn't got any worse, however it doesn't seem to have gotten any better. I'm treating with a proprietary antiseptic, bowling him every 2-3 days and squirting this stuff on the 'split'. It isn't infected luckily. So fingers crossed. The falling temp may be hindering healing. We were thinking about heating the pond next year,tho' Sky fishes injury may encourage us to do it much sooner.. been looking at gas boiler to do the job. Mad I know!

I wish I didnt take a peak in here before i went out lol, to early in the AM for big debates. But here goes, the classifications of koi are not always easy for a layman to see or even work out, the most sort after koi is a Kohacu, but there are something like 7-8 different classes of kohacu, mainly for patten shape, but they all come under kohacu, so most jsut stick to the single kohacu. Another simily is sanshoku, which means 3 colours, there are several that fall under this, sanke and showa being the most comon names, but they are each given the individual name to seperate the difference, the difference in sanke and showa being showa always have black at the base of the fin, sanke may have a little black in the fin but not the base, yet both fish may look identical except for that one minor point, and its that point that names the fish, other 3 colour fish have a seperate name but also fall under group tag. chagoi, soragoi, ki goi (i have one of each) are all the basic one colour so they fall under the one class, ie benigoi if you like, but to call it a benigoi isnt exactly right, because it is a collective name, same as kohacu and sanshocu, its a bit like "hyacith Bucket" saying (boo-kay) because it sounds posher lol its not incorrect but it not exactly right either, your fish is a nice fish, very nice, and aka muji are difficult to find, I maybe wrong too, your koi might even fall under "kinginrin hi ogon" thats the difference of the class it seperates the colours, and they can confuse even the best sometimes, and one of the poitns of individual names, it makes it easier to identify the fish......mostly, you see what i mean Linda? your not wrong calling it a benigoi, but your not right either lol its a fine point of correctness, I think a nice koi deserves its right name, you agree? Jo, Doitsu does mean a scaless fish, but again the name doistu covers a wide area, a fish may have scales covering 10% or more of its body and still be doitsu, but it is very common for a doitsu to have that large band of sclaes down its back, some even have them along the lateral line too, but yep its a doitsu soragoi, and like all the goi breeds they are greedy and fast growers.

when our goldies spawned (when we had goldies) it was quite a "boysterous" affair, lots of chasing, splashing, jockying for position. from what i've heard koi behave in a similar fashion only the splashes are bigger! i've heard of fish being injured in the spawning melee so it doesnt sound like thats your solution. if all params are spot on all you can do is watch (carefully) and wait i guess? ours went a bit timid recently with the thunderstorms we had but soon returned to normal. no flicking/flashing going on? regards jo o/