Ochi big fish in a little fish's body

One of our newest fish is Ochi a, small Ochiba Shiguri.  He is a grey fish with dark red-brown sections of color.  An Ochiba Shiguri is reputedly a Soragoi  mixed with a Chagoi (a large brown koi).  I personally think that these fish look more like a Kohaku, similar to our Koko,  mixed with a Sorogoi, but I digress.

The end result of this debate of the hodgepodge of genetic history is just a nice looking fish..  This type of fish is a favorite in most Japanese ponds.  The Japanese meaning for Ochiba Shiguri is “falling leaves on water”.  Cool.

Our Ochiba Shiguri is a small fish that also has gin rin scales.  Gin rin scales are shiny, highly reflective scales.  They make this fish shimmer as the sunlight hits his body. 

It must be tough being the a little fish among a bunch of larger fish.  This little guy measures about 4 inches and has to fight for every morsel of food it gets.  He is so small that any movement by any of the larger fish almost pushes him out of the pond.  But this guy is the “Jack Russell" of our pond.  I have seen him take on the larger fish Sorgi a Soragoi , about three times his size. He gets pushed around and then just jumps back into the mix.

I can’t wait till he gets bigger…'cause when he does, watch out.  He might be the one doing the pushing around.