Excellent skin quality is one of the most important and desirable attributes necessary in all Koi. Its also one of the most rare and difficult to find.

For most of us finding and buying Koi with good skin quality is much more realistic. Its also very difficult to articulate and better demonstrated physically, with your face in a bowl in the sunshine! Because of the importance of this we have also prepared some short videos to demonstrate the important points.

In non metallic Koi skin quality is the degree of shine and glow the Koi emanates. This is achieved by a combination of factors from quality of the white skin, pattern and colours. In the very best examples the skin appears three dimensional and glowing. It can also have a reflective quality that you feel you can actually put your hand into. This will all sound bizarre to the less experienced, but equally be readily recognised by the more experienced.

Its also important to appreciate that as Koi age, the skin also ages, and becomes less of whatever it starts off as. So if the skin is poor when its young, by the time its two, three, or four, the skin is highly likely to be disappointing.

The very best of the best do often seen immune to this process, although they’re of course not, thus enhancing their rarity and remarkability, even further.

Its also vital to appreciate that skin quality is partially a dynamic and temporary attribute. Good Koi keeping can improve and enhance it. Water quality, temperature and feeding are all absolutely vital to the maintenance, and enhancement of skin quality. Of course shortcomings in any of the aforementioned, can also have the opposite effect, and there’s many a potentially great Koi been ruined by poor Koi keeping. Its the Koi having, and our ability to spot it in the first place, that gives us any stake in this exciting game in the first place. This renders the skills necessary well worth the effort.

In metallic Koi this quality is defining, but the good news is that its also marginally less complicated and easier to spot, and assess, because its manifested in the degree of lustre presented by the Koi… or not!

One final thought on this fascinating topic. While its possible to develop body and even skin quality, it remains impossible to turn a sows ear into a silk purse!