Swimming with the creme de la koi

One recent afternoon, a pickup truck loaded with large cardboard boxes pulled out of a small parking lot west of Allentown, Pa. In the boxes were plastic bags of oxygenated water, and in the water were 29 live fish.

These were not your average pet shop swimmers. These were koi, collectively valued at $64,000, and they were on the first leg of a journey that would take them to a buyer in Holland.

With bright red or orange markings, koi may be large and fun to watch, but what makes them so expensive? Just like cats and dogs, some koi are free to a good home. Others might have a pedigree, or certain colors or qualities that make them more showable in koi competitions, and that drives the price up, says Carl Forss, owner of Koi by Keirin, the South Whitehall Township company that imports koi from Japan and sells them in Pennsylvania and around the world.

Japan is where koi mania started about 175 years ago, when fish farmers who were raising black carp for food started selectively breeding the occasional fish with a little color or unusual markings. ... more