I just kept wanting to take more photos of them and stare at them all. There were so many different colors and it looked like they were just dancing together. In the Japanese culture, the koi fish symbolizes luck, prosperity and good fortune. While I have mostly seen koi in large ponds usually in Japanese gardens or traditional towns, I was very surprised when I saw some living in the water-catching channels on either side of the street. In these one-to-two foot wide channels, there was only about a foot or less of water. Even so, the koi looked happy enough swimming around and it gave a sense of nature living within the town.
Koi are a cold-water fish that live mostly in ponds. They do well when the water is around 59–77 °F and don’t like long and cold winter temperatures. In parts of the world where there are warm temperatures, koi ponds are usually three feet deep. However, in parts of the world that have colder winters, ponds will be over five feet deep. Koi are an omnivorous fish, eating a wide variety of foods, such as peas, lettuce and watermelon.
Pond keepers have to be careful when constructing a koi pond because the bright colors of the fish attract the attention of hungry predators such as herons, cats and racoons. Koi will swim to deeper sections of a pond where herons and other predators are unable to easily grab the fish. In North America, koi are used in ponds on golf courses to eat any water-born insects. This makes golf courses more attractive because they don’t have mosquitoes and other annoying bugs during the hot summers.
