I work in downtown St.Louis and there is a Chinese Resturant across the street but I have never been in it before. I decided to go there for lunch today . When you first enter the place they have two of the biggest koi I have ever seen in a big tank. I know they must have been 3 feet long at least from nose to tail. And about 8 inches deep. I was so amazed at how big they are that I had to stop on my way out after eating lunch to watch them . I think the Chinese family that owns the place must of thought I was nuts.

Wow! Those are big fish! :o

I know I have seen koi before but never that big. Mango may have seen some that big before but it was a first for me

The biggest that I've ever seen were just under 2 feet. ^_^

I wish I had had a camera with me. you guys would have loved to see them I bet.

Woooah..That would be really cool to see!
Honestly, the biggest fish I've ever seen were maybe 10 inch plecos.

I would have loved to see them! :wub:

At the zoo here, they have a huge koi pond with a arched covered bridge that crosses over the center of the pond. In the pond on either side of the bridge, there are 2 spider monkey islands. They are alot of koi in the pond that are easily 3 feet long.

bettaqueen. Go to the botanic garden at St Louis, check out the japan garden and there are plenty of huge kois in there. :LOL:
Actually the chinese would love customers to look at their fish in the tank so no worried. Else it won't be there. It is fungsui for the restorant to attract customers. :Ohlalala

I used to work at an aquatic plant garden center that also sold fish for ponds. They had a collection of koi (not for sale). One of the things I had to do was treat the ulcers that the koi had in the spring. That's when I fell in love with them. :wub:

They have to be the smartest fish I've worked with. You could almost see them think. They each had different personalities too. The dominant one of the school was a huge white standard female. Next in the chain of command was a big yellow butterfly male. He was my favorite. He was a pig! When I would walk by he was always the first one to see if I had food to hand out. He would actually come partially out of the water to plop his head in my hand and slurp up the feed! It was cool!

In the tanks that held the fish that were for sale I had taught to come on que and nibble on fingers (hoping to get food). It was so fun watching the kids! I kinda miss working with pond fish. Oh, by the way - koi don't have teeth, at least not in their mouthes.

:Hello! Anyone else have pond fish tales?

i had koi before and i have seen some really big koi my lfs has a giant koi he trained gives kisses eats from your hand etc it is a beautiful koi if i ever get a house i will buy one with a gigantic koi pond i will buy this guy from him course it is going to cost me almost 6 k for it :LOL2 as it is show quality and this guy is huge i will be going up there this week i will post up pics this koi will follow you up and down in the pond as you walk and you look in at the pond he comes up as the so pet me or feed me or i want to give you kisses he has so many my god he was beautiful he was almost like a brownish color and had silver scale pattern this guy was beautiful now i'm drooling about koi they are wonderful fish and each time i go there i go and greet him and he comes right up with no fear :wub: :wub:

I love Koi. I have plans for a nice sized pond in this one location on my 3/4 acre lot. It's a big pie shape part of my yard on the other side of the horseshoe drive. I'm going to fence it off seperately with a nice looking wood type fence, make it a garden complete with gazebo and the pond with Koi! Going to be lovely I think.

The Buddhist Monastary by my house has a huge pond, easily the size of a fairly large natural pond, full of beautiful Koi. One of my favorites is a massive white Koi that is a good 3ft long. There are also some really cool naturally colored ones. I really haven't seen such large or healthy specimins outside of the really HUGE ones they had in Hawai'i.
They really weren't supposed to be in the pond to begin with, though. From what VERY little I know, releasing an animal from captivity is considered to be a very holy act. So people were releasing Koi, exotic turtles, peacocks, exotic pheasant, and some other exotic fish onto the property. The temple had a little chit-chat and now releasing invasives is prohibited. They let the koi, non-native fish, and turtles stay since the pond is pretty well contained, but the pheasants and peacocks were captured and sent to zoos and private homes. The zoo I worked at even took some ^_^

Yeah, a few years back, a Buddist guy was killed out in a park near where I used to live.
His family went there, and released all his pets..
I felt bad for the pets.. he had parakeets and fancy goldfish and such like.. Things that would never be able to survive in the wild.
I think the great blue Heron got the gold fish within days, and the parakeets probably froze when winter came.
The thing is, this was filmed by a news crew, and I was thinking, didn't anyone stop to tell you what you are doing is illegal? Not that I think they would have been summoned to court over it, all things considered, but still.

Now that would explain some strange things I'd seen while I was in the Orient. Makes sense now. I wasn't aware of this custom.

But yeah Belle, that would be sad. I mean, those just aren't wild animals to begin with so it's more cruel than doing something good to "release" them in to the wild!

But there you go, the contrasts in beliefs. Live and let live, I say.