My husband works with a guy who has a pond and lots of fish.. he said he stated out with 10 or so and now has tons.. he gave us three of them.. but to me, they just look like gold fish.. they are just orange.. none of the characteristic mottling like you see on Koi.. though I know there are some Koi that are just orange.. I guess it doesn't really matter what they are.. I would just like to know. Thanks...
Don't think there is a fisherperson in the crowd.. Hey ...... i once tried fish and killed them all in 2 days.. Inside. I am a cattle rustler, not a fisherman.
think shape. koi are related to carp and/or catfish, and are shaped more like a catfish. their "flatness" is horizontal to the pond floor (like you almost stepped on one)
gold fish aren't, their "flatness" is vertical like they got caught in a door.
the coloring on koi is actually one of those breeding things... and in japan where koi grow wild, the breeders will release the plain gold ones and keep to sell the mottled or white ones. so, for every mottled one, there are quite a few plain gold ones. just like gold fish, there are white mottled ones of those too.
Well then from what I can tell, these are goldfish. But I guess that is alright.. right? I just kind of wish I would have been able to get my own fish if I was just going to end up with gold fish.. I wanted some of the cute fancy tail ones.. oh well, these were free. ;)
And indeed, that was a cute, clever way of explaining them!!
goldfish won't get much larger than a couple of inches. koi can get BIG - over a foot.
do you have the fish in a tank inside or in a pond outside?? if they ARE goldfish, they won't survive outside for the winter...koi will if you take care to keep the pond from completely freezing over.
I disagree.... My sister had gold fish and they were about a foot long.. About 15 years old. In a very large tank about 4 foot long......She said the longer the tank, the larger the the fish...Including gold ones.........She bought some last summer and they are abut 5 inches long already>>>>>>
My goldfish can grow easily up to 12-15 inches long depending on the size of water they are in--like dodge said, the bigger tank/pond--the bigger the fish and they can live for years and years. And they can live outside in the winter fine as long as you have at least a 3 ft deep section for them to overwinter in.
Yikes, didn't mean to start a debate here. But from what I have been told about goldfish, they do get big also depending on what size container they are in. They may not get as big as Koi do though.. I have no idea on that. Don't know much about Koi.. ha ha.. not much = Nothing. And as for wintering them, we are going to get an inline heater for the pond.. so it will not freeze over anyway.. so whatever they are, they should be ok.. I hope.. I guess time will tell.
Oh Hadeda.. yay!! Do they have whiskers even when they are little little fish? I mean they are about 2-3 inches maybe... I now need to check them to see if they have whiskers.. I honestly think they are goldfish.. but what do I know!! :P
And we also thought about the floating deicer idea as well.. We have horses so we have several of those from over the years..
Last edited by Pinkhorseofcourse; Jun 10th, 2007 at 12:56 PM.
Whoops I meant they have 4 whiskers at each side of their mouthes, a set will be more longer than the other set
I'm not too sure about them when they are 2-3 inches but you will notice Koi will grow at a more rapid rate than goldfish, another thing you will notice is their mouth is also a different shape, watch when they feed, a goldfish mouth is sort of 'telescopic'. it extends when it feeds, a Koi's mouth is downward facing and is more rigid and doesn't open forwards like a goldfish
Last edited by Hadeda; Jun 10th, 2007 at 01:06 PM.
Ok, well I sat and watched my little fishies.. and I am convinced that these are gold fish. From the information that I have anyway.. I should just try to get some good pictures and post them.. actually, I do have a few pics on my computer. I will see if they are good enough to post.
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