How This Works
Koi can be very cheap to get when they are small, but take a lot of care, much more than goldfish, and they get large quick needing a pond to live in. Also with their 60 year minimum life span, it is tough for a single human to continually take care of a koi for it's whole life. There are so many koi in the Phoenix area that need new homes, that a single person or a few people going to rescue them is not practical. Below is an open notification list which anyone can post to if they have fish that need urgent rescue, or fish that they have available either for free or with an adoption fee. The pkr-fish list is moderated and the only messages allowed to pass are ones which announce koi that need rescue, or are available for adoption.
You have koi that need a new home:
Urgent Koi Pickup !!
If you have a koi that needs to be picked up urgently, then email a notification to: pkr-fish@yahoogroups.com
Please include the following information:
- how to contact you
- number of koi or other pond fish that need to be picked up
- size of the fish
- size of the pond (length, width, depths)
- nearest cross streets and/or area of town you live in
The expectations are that koi which need urgent pickup should be offered for free, and that one or just a couple of people would come over to your backyard pond to pick them up. The people that pickup the koi would then keep the ones they want, and make the others available for adoption to the list. A reasonable time frame within 1 week of contact and commitment to come. For info on how to rescue koi, see Koi Handling Info Page
Koi available for adoption
Do you have some koi which you would like to adopt out to others? Email an announcement to the list: pkr-fish@yahoogroups.com
You can either offer them for free, or charge an adoption fee, its up to you. For suggested adoption fees, see: [adoption fee suggestions]
This notification list is for backyard kind of people. If you are a regular koi dealer, send me a link to your website and I'll gladly post it here.
Koi on Craigslist.org
If you have never heard of it, there is a free classifieds website called Criag's list. There are a lot of koi available there, you can either do a general search in the forsale area for koi and you can look in the pets category for koi
You want to adopt some koi:
Want to Adopt Koi / Subscribe to Notification List
If you would like to adopt koi, is what you can do:
1 - Subscribe to the notification list so when new fish become available, you will get a notice. 2 - Look at the previous messages to see what fish are available [click here]
Warranty of koi health
It is expected that when a person picks up a koi, they assume all responsibility for the koi as it goes into their possession. If a koi dies in your car on the way home, well, that is the way it goes, and you should figure out what went wrong so it doesn't happen again. From my experience rescuing koi, the only un-fixable trouble is when the koi is first rescued from a severe stressed environment where they were on their way to dying, such as a golf course pond that was being drained, and the fish were in respiratory distress when picked up.
Quarantine of Adopted Koi
Everyone who has a koi pond should have a quarantine system (spare tank, filter etc), and it is the expectation that the final owner perform the quarantine process. For more info, see Koi Health Info page.
Group Rescues
Anyone can organize and lead group rescues. It is important for the rescue leader to get some kind of written permission to be on the property and to hold a rescue effort. For distributing the fish that are caught that day, it works well to catch all the fish of the day first, then pick names from a hat to create an order to go in, and each person gets a turn picking one fish they want. If there are still fish available, do another round of picking. Lots of people like to just catch fish and don't want to take any home. For more info on how to catch fish from large ponds, see Koi Handling Info Page You can borrow my 4' x 50' seine net, just need to let me hold a $100 deposit. I also have a couple of 6' diameter (300 gallon) inflatable play pools you can borrow for $20 deposit each. They are great to hold koi while you are catching them.
Koi Dealers in the Phoenix Area
Phoenix Tropical -- 3148 N 37th St Phoenix, AZ 85018 (602) 955-4180 (no website or email)
Goldfield Koi & Gem - Apache Junction - Mickey gldfldkoi@netzero.com (602) 677-0373 gemkoiaz@gmail.com
Pets, Inc -- 3201 S Mill Ave Tempe, AZ 85282 (480) 966-7910 moreinfo@petsincco.com
Chat About Koi:
General Koi Discussion Group
Want to chat about pond related topics with others in the Phoenix area? This is our discussion group: To see the group main page [click here]
Adoption Fee Suggestions
If you have an urgent need for someone to come over and pickup the koi right away, you should give those fish away for free. The person rushing over is doing it at an expense of gas / time / effort and having a facility ready to recieve the fish. For koi that people make available which don't need urgent pickup, those adoption fees can vary greatly depending on the size and color of the koi. Show quality koi can be very expensive, such as $250 to $500 for a 10" koi. Unique mutts also demand a higher price. Average backyard pond quality koi with colors Walmart, Petsmart, Petco etc are usually not worth very much. For those average koi, here are some suggested adoption fees:
| Goldfish, any size | $2 ea |
| Shubunkins, small | $5 ea |
| Shubunkins, large | $15 ea |
| Hybrid Koi-Goldfish, small | $5 ea |
| Hybrid Koi-Goldfish, large | $15 ea |
| koi < 10" | $15 |
| koi 10"-15" | $25 |
| koi 15"-25" | $45 |
| koi 25"+ | $100 |
PLEASE DON'T DUMP YOUR KOI IN PUBLIC WATERWAYS !!!Dumping your koi in a public water way is sending them to their death. Koi dumped in ponds get caught by anglers, and either taken home and eaten, or they put them in their bath tub thinking they will make a pond and keep them. They quickly jump out of the bathtub and die. Koi dumped in the canals will last for less than a year - the city cleans each section of the canals and removes all the dumped fish
The picture at the right is of a boy who caught a koi in public park that had a pond. Hanging a heavy koi like this by your finger rips apart their gills and kills them.
Most common reasons people put ther koi up for adoption
Koi live to be atleast 60 years old, are intelligent and very interactive pets. Many koi will swim up to their owners and hand feed or just to be rubbed. With great creatures like this, it sure would be a shame to have their lives cut short. With this in mind, here are some of the top reasons people need to find new homes for their koi:
#1 selling a house - Its tought to setup an adequate temporary pond, and takes a lot of time to keep it working properly so your koi won't die.
#2 want to take a break from the maintenance - Nobody ever tells the truth about how much maintenance is involved with a koi pond. If you have a professionally designed pond with the right filters, the maintenance is a bit easier, but for most people with simple filtration systems, the maintenance is a pain and you really have to like koi to keep up with it. Goldfish ponds are a lot less demanding, and I have picked up many koi from people that were downsizing to just goldfish and shubunkins, or were going to park their pond.
#3 big die off, only couple left - When koi are small, they don't need that much filtration. The problem is that koi grow to be 36" long and as they get bigger, they are much more sensitive to poor water conditions. A common cycle is for people to get a few baby koi, then pickup one or two every now and then. After a time, the koi get bigger and bigger which overloads the filter system and then it suddenly crashes killing most of the koi. Pretty frustrating.
#4 Have small kids - Either people buy a house with a pond, or they have their first child. A pond or pool is a serious drowning hazzard. Better to take a break from the pond, and when the kids are older, start the pond up again.
Disclaimer
(sadly I have to post this) By inviting people to rescue your fish, you agree to hold them or any other members of Phoenix Koi Rescue harmless of liability or damage while we are performing a rescue. We will do our best to be polite and act in a professional manner, but sometimes accidents happen, ponds are slippery and messy. Also the people rescuing your fish agree to hold you harmless of any damage or injury caused to the rescuer or their property. A rescuer is arriving to your location at their own risk.
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