What makes for a good Chargoi

[shiromujigirl]

I had a gin lin Chagoi I bought from a fellow club member at a show he sold because she didn't win. She was like that Sugar fish also. It was instant love. She grew fairly large fairly quickly she was such an eatist. I taught her to ring a bell. I rubbed my fingers in wet food and rubbed them on a knot on a string tied to the clapper of the bell and dangled this in the water. She can over, smelled the food grabbed the knot and, finding it inedible, shook her head in disgust. This rang the bell. I immediately gave her food. This was repeated one time, she rang the bell by accident and got food. She then swam to the center of the pond, whirled around, facing the bell, fins spread. After a moment, she folded her fins back, swam straight to the bell like an arrow, seized the string, and rose her head out of the water, and, lashing from side to side, rang the bell loudly. Within two weeks she had taught 2/3s of the pond to ring the bell. The next year I took my show fish to our show and after the judging she and her cohorts entertained the crowd by ringing the bell.

[Dan Blatt]

Great story - a real bell ringer! It never ceases to amaze me how smart this fish are, each with a different personality and their own way of amusing their keeper. Thanks for sharing that interesting bit of your koi's history. By the way did you name her Belle? :smt021

[soelistyo]

my goodness! what a novel idea, teaching the koi to ring a bell for food. if mine learned to do that, i think my >70cm soragoi (barely tosai, btw!) would be on 24 hour bell watch, and i would not get any moment's peace in the home what with the constant ringing.

[Maurice]

In my view the chagoi I posted on the right is too dark. Spose it's a personal thing.
Many people lookout for a light coloured one, but most of these do not have defined scale reticulation. Somewhere in between suits me best.
I expect most of you have seen this photo, it's one of my babies and to me has everything a chagoi should have.

Maurice.

[Maurice]

Reading SMG's comments on names of koi I thought of our male chagoi.
We have had it for a number of years. I think it was back in 1999 we visited Infiltration looking for a number of male koi as I was planning on starting breeding. There was one chagoi there at the time and it looked male, so we bowled it up to inspect. Around 17"/18" it had the build of a male, but no milt, but on closer inspection had a mouth deformity, so Waddy said it was ours if we wanted it.
Lynn my wife soon fell in love with this koi when it was in our pond, it's one of the family and will never leave us. Lynn named it Zoe after a character in one of our British soaps, as she tends to swing the other way and our chagoi could not seem to make it's mind up which way it was going to swing.
Now it's not the biggest chagoi around as it's hard to shovel food into a smaller than normal mouth, but it's up to 25" and this last summer had milt for the first time in it's life.
Fingers crossed it'll be a daddy come spring as it's going into the breeding program.

Right click on the image and look at the properties and you will see the saved file as zoe!!
Maurice.

[shiromujigirl]

So you all notice they change their shade of brown, richer brown in summer, more golden in winter? Here she is in the summer. She is a light honey brown at the moment.

[shiromujigirl]

If you leave the bell string in the water on bell trained fish and are not there to reward them, the behaviour will soon be extinguished. It is possible to rig up a self feeder from the bell assembly and a PVC pipe with fish food in it. As there is activity on the bell a few peices of food fall out.

[Bob Hart]

Couple of pictures of a Chagoi of mine. Bought about 10-years ago at 5" (12 cm) for the princely sum of £10 (approx 7 US Dollars).

Now approx. 30" (76cm) long and still growing. Has the one thing you really dont want on any Koi though - Shimmies. But a real charactor and is very greedy - named BIG, as it was the biggest once. Now rivaled by a similar sized Kigoi and a Mirror carp.

[Maurice]

Hey Bob, not sure if you realise, but it looks dead to me. ops:
It's not a good sign, when they're laid on there side!
Maurice.

[Sanke56]

Bob was that ice around you chagoi. I can relate to that when I take mine out in fall they are usually packed in ice too. What do you mean he has the shimmies is that fatal or is it an eating disorder like bolemia. Your fish actually looks like a female I can't see the picture as a write this but It seemed heavy like a female.