subject: The Remarkable Asagi Koi [print this page] One of the most beautiful and popular fish in the world is the koi. Originally, koi only came in red, yellow and white but with the passage of time, there are now many different kinds of colorful koi available to choose from.
This has been made possible due to selective breeding and cross-breeding, creating several classes and sub-classes of koi for your pond, each with a special name. No matter what kind of koi you pick, all the types of koi are beautiful and graceful and will provide you with countless hours of entertainment and stress relief.
One of the oldest and most original of the koi fish classifications is the Asagi koi. It has been found to be as old as 160 years, and is supposedly a mutant of an earlier species known as Magoi (Black koi). From the Black koi, a different breed of koi came into existence that had blue scales with a white or light blue color around it, forming a net-like pattern.
This species was later cross-bred with Kohaku koi to give birth to the Asagi koi, a koi with red cheeks, red fins and a beautiful blue dorsal area.
Asagi koi usually have blue/gray scales over their back. The color of the scales can range from blue to light blue, darker shades being in the middle of the dorsal area. The gills and pectoral fins of the Asagi koi are usually in red. The fish has the tendency however to sometimes turn dark or even totally black in cold waters.
Asagi koi and their sub-classes are classified on the basis of the pattern found on them. This is how the koi are classified:
Konjo Asagi: The darkest variety of Asagi koi out there, they are sometimes completely black.
Narumi Asagi: These are named after a small town in Japan where cloth with patterns similar to those found on this Asagi koi was widely produced. They are a deep blue in the middle with lighter edges.
Mizu Asagi: The most valued Asagi koi, they come in the lightest shade of blue. They are also referred to as Akebi Asagi.
Asagi Sanke: A hybrid of Asagi and Sanke. Sometimes can be found with a rare pearl white lower abdomen, making it priceless.
Taki Asagi: This variety of Asagi is quite uncommon. It has a vivid red abdomen with a brilliant white streak running across it and the typical Asagi pattern.
Shusui: This variety of Asagi koi has large mirror scales and lateral lines to either side of the dorsal line. This is the successful result of a famous tcross-breed between the Asagi and Doitsu varieties of koi.
Many of these differences are relatively easy to spot and are used for assigning value to the different types of Asagi koi. The most valuable ones however are the Asagi that have some amount of white coloring on their abdomen. These are extremely rare and can therefore be quite expensive to purchase.
