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Akai-san
Grumpy once explained to me that a breeder may have 1000 tosai come out of the mud pond but only have room to over-winter 100. The remaining 900 are sold. If you want to buy koi the cheapest possible way you buy the lot at once for let us say $20,000 or if you want you can buy the best 100 of the 900 on offer and the price will be... $20,000. In truth you get the other 800 for free if you buy the lot. As you go down the line the fish become less and less valuable but it behooves the breeder to sell the lot in one go and be rid of them if he can. Most of these fish will be bought by middle-men who sell them on to dealers and garden-centers around the world.
Now the 100 that the breeder keeps are now Tatagoi. If you wish to buy one of these then you must pay a price based on what the breeder thinks this fish might be worth at some point down the line. Realize that $20,000 he recieved from the middle-man isn't going to come anywhere near covering the costs a breeder makes in the course of a season. The money need to come from his tatagoi. During the winter the dealer my sell 20-25 fish to customers and other dealers. Now he has 80 odd fish but come spring only has room for 40 in the mud pond. Now once again the fish are sorted and half of them become tatashita. (ta-tish-ta)
The tosai go into the mud-pond and in the fall they are once again judged. Many of the fish are males and automatically become tatashita. Other haven't lived up to expectations and also fall by the wayside. Out of the original 1000 we are now down to 15 fish. Next year it's the same and at the end of 5 years he might have only one fish from the whole original lot.
The thing to remember is that as you climb the mountain the air becomes thinner. The fish become better and more expensive. Even the fish that don't make the grade are most often better than the fish that were eliminated the year before. Every year that passes the quality increases ten fold. The last if left is often the very best of 1,000,000 fry that were hatched. Truly such a fish is one in a million.
Fish like this are not meant for everyone. Indeed, if you are a koi keeper with a proper pond, a Q-tank, a microscope, a good net and a hand full of test kits, you represent the elite of the hobby even though you might just be starting out. If you meet these requirements you are already in the top 5% of the hobby. The vast majority of people are of the "plastic filled hole with lilies and fish". They dump a pump in the pond and connect it to a magic black box filter. Maybe they have a 9w UV as well but they certainly never understand why their fish keep dying.
As you start building you pond remember that the pond itself is only the beginning. Just as important and often overlooked are all the extras I named above. I say extras but in fact they are essentials that shouldn't be over looked when budgeting for your new pond.
I think you should try to spend your money initially on outfitting these things rather than fish. In the beginning it is always better to have a few cheap fish to learn from. The first two to three years the learning curve can be quite steep especially if you don't have someone knowledgeable close at hand to walk you through the tricky bits.
B.Scott
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