Can Yellow Koi Turn Orange ?

[Ace Buzz]

I'm new to keeping koi. I've had an outdoor pond for about 5 months. My largest koi (6 inches) is yellow but today I noticed that it has a couple of pale orange patches on one side. The patches are not raised, pale orange and about half an inch diameter. The fish seems untroubled and is feeding well and happily swimming around although it does sometimes twist in the water as though playing. I don't know whether I should be worried or not. It did the twisty thing about a month ago but I thought that I had "confused" it in to thinking it was summer as I was leaving the pool lights on well into the evening. It only lasted a couple of nights then stopped.

Pool is about 3500 litres. Nitrites zero, Nitrates about 10 ppm. There is a trace of ammonia - about 0.5 ppm but while I know it should be zero this doesnot seem dramatically high to me. pH is 7.8. As the nights are getting cooler I have reduced the feeding although I do occasionally give the fish a few brine shrimp by way of a treat. The yellow koi shares the pond with about 4 other smaller koi and 5 grass carp plus 4 goldfish.

Filtration is a bioforce 12000 uvs with UV and three filteration sponges.

I would appreciate advice as I don't not want to treat the pond unecessarily but on the other hand I don't want let something get a grip when I could have prevented it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[mark4785]

At that kind of length (6 inches) I would be more inclined to think that the pale orange patches are a sign of a maturing fish. I also have a koi that is about 6 inches in length and recently brown/black marks started appearing mostly on one side of the body; I made a topic about this on the forum and I was told it was a natural transition. I followed this advise and 2-3 months down the line the fish is still healthy and consuming food.

I think if anything was wrong with the fish it would lose it's colour and appear more pale.

 

[Ace Buzz]

At that kind of length (6 inches) I would be more inclined to think that the pale orange patches are a sign of a maturing fish. I also have a koi that is about 6 inches in length and recently brown/black marks started appearing mostly on one side of the body; I made a topic about this on the forum and I was told it was a natural transition. I followed this advise and 2-3 months down the line the fish is still healthy and consuming food.

I think if anything was wrong with the fish it would lose it's colour and appear more pale.

ok - thanks for this. I'll keep an eye on it but I'm happier that I don't need to panic.

 

[afishdude]

Normal