Description
The original meaning of goshiki is “five-colored”. These colors are white, black, red, light blue, and dark blue. When mixed on some goshiki (i.e. kuro) the ground (main, or background color of the body) can appear as purple, which makes for a really good-looking koi fish! This variety was originally placed in the kawarimono (or “miscellaneous”) class for judging purposes, but due to great efforts to improve and refine the variety, it was recently upgraded to a combined koromo / goshiki class.
Goshiki Koi Fish South Africa
The reason these two varieties are combined into one class is that they are of the same genetic blend – Kohaku and Asagi. The kohaku gene contributes the red patterning on a white background while the Asagi gene contributes the reticulation. In the case of koromo this reticulation is restricted to the red areas, while with goshiki the reticulation is usually restricted to the white areas (the exception being kuro goshiki as mentioned above which sometimes has reticulation on both the red and white areas).
Fishnet Pattern With No Specs
A good Goshiki koi fish should have a clean fishnet pattern with no specs or black spots thrown in to disrupt the fishnet look. The neon red or orange as described above should be thick and have good clean and crisp edges to the Hi plate. You don’t want to see any holes in that hi plate, but it is ok at times that the black fishnet pattern shows through the Hi plate. This is dependent on the age of the fish as to whether it is a detriment or not. As they mature the Hi plate should and usually does thicken with time, and the fishnet pattern will no longer show thru. The degree of thickening of the Hi plate is a distinctive trait of the Goshiki. However, in all this, it can be a very unstable fish when speaking of color development. It is not uncommon that many of them end up losing that hi plat altogether. If that happens you are left with quite an ugly fish. The risks however are worth the reward if they develop properly. They are simply stunning to see! There are also offshoot breeds from Goshiki called Goshiki Sanke and Goshiki Showa. We won’t get into those details now though.
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