Ogon Japanese Koi Carp Cyprinus Carpio

Ogon Japanese Koi Carp Cyprinus CarpioOgon Japanese Koi Carp Cyprinus Carpio The Ogon varieties were originally bred by a Japanese koi hobbyist called Sawata Aoki. Over 95 years ago, Aoki dreamed of one day creating a very special and unique koi that would be new and exciting and completely different to any koi that was available at the time. After a few unsuccessful attempts at breeding something new, Aoki heard that a young boy had found a wild carp in a river with beautiful golden

Ogon Japanese Koi Carp Cyprinus Carpio

The Ogon varieties were originally bred by a Japanese koi hobbyist called Sawata Aoki. Over 95 years ago, Aoki dreamed of one day creating a very special and unique koi that would be new and exciting and completely different to any koi that was available at the time. After a few unsuccessful attempts at breeding something new, Aoki heard that a young boy had found a wild carp in a river with beautiful golden stripes. Aoki was quite poor at the time but just knew that he needed this fish. So, he walked many, many miles and travelled a long way to see this golden carp and when he saw it, Aoki knew that this fish was important, that it would help him to finally achieve his dream.

The boy was unwilling to give up his very special find but eventually, Aoki was able to convince the boy to sell the fish to him. Aoki gave the boy almost all his life savings in exchange for the fish but he was happy, his dream was about to come true. Aoki began his long walk home with his new fish, his mind racing with all the ideas and plans he had for this stunning fish. He could hardly imagine what this one wild carp could begin.

Unfortunately, Aoki had little success initially and almost gave up on his dream. His dreams that the wild carp would quickly produce a special new koi variety were quickly falling apart. Fortunately, however, Aoki had plenty of patience and spent the next 25 years slowly selectively breeding his wild carp with koi crap. With each generation, he chose the brightest and shiniest offspring to keep and breed on with each new generation being a little bit shinier, a little bit brighter and a little bit more consistent than the previous.

It wasn’t until 1946 that Aoki finally decided he had created a new koi variety and his new metallic koi was shown at koi shows. He had one particular koi that was shinier and brighter than all his others and stunned all the koi lovers who saw it. It has beautiful yellow skin and a stunning golden shine that caught the light beautifully. This was the very first Yamabuki Ogon and also the very first metallic koi carp. In fact, every single metallic koi that is available to us today is a direct descendant of that first Yamabuki Ogon koi.

After his success with the Yamabuki Ogon, some people thought that Aoki, having finally achieved his dream, would settle down and enjoy his new metallic koi. Certainly not! He continued to develop the Yamabuki Ogon and bred the variety with lots of other koi varieties to further produce more Ogon koi varieties. Aoki also set up his own koi breeding farm, Aokiya, where he began expanding into other, non-metallic koi varieties. Aokiya is now one of the biggest koi farms in Japan and Aoki is considered to be the leading breeder for lots of koi varieties including Gosanke, Goshiki, Kujaku, Hariwake, Kikokuryu and more!