Where abouts do koi come from? i want to see how they look in the wild etc etc

I believe koi are like goldfish, man made by selective breeding. I know they are part of the carp family. and were breed from a type of carp selectively to look as they do.

ahh Ok, i seen a guy on the net once catch a huge carp that looked like a Koi but i just cant seem to find that site now.

Yep, selective breed. They started many many years ago, WAY back infact.

It started when fish farmers found "coloured fish" in their food stocks, these fish would only have odd coloured single scales, and through breeding they then form what we now know as koi. Once apon a time, it was considered very "classiy" if an emeror or noble had a coloured fish in his pond.

I believe they first starting showing up in Iraq/Iran area, and now can be found in China and Japan aswell.

--Dan

Iraq, not iran, very different places, they were first domesticted 4000 years ago I believe, I have forgotten when but thgat sounds right, then they travled up to europe (as in farmers moved them) and some were bred selectively to produce mirror carp, then they went throught the western former soviet union, were they are sitll farmed today, then to china on the silk road, then ofcourse whatever happen in china happens to the rest of asia so they made it to japan, where the japanese nobles bred them to be attractive from the top down (those beautiful koi body shapes) and to have striking colors.

Koi can live to be 200 years old you know.

Yeah, they are a very long lived fish! Now japanese breeders are breeding backwards to obtain larger fish, as through selective breeding sizes have decreased dramatically.

Regardless of where they come from, theres a pond not too far from me where i fish. I know that at some point koi were released into this pond and many have cross bred with the local carp, so we get some nice koi hybrids. Unfortunately many dont survive infancy due to the large population of perch in that lake, but the big ones are stunners!