15th Annual “Koi Days” Holland Show Follow Up
by Jasper Kuijper

This is the biggest Koi show in Europe and probably the world. It is held in Arcen, which is in the Netherlands close to the German border. It is estimated that more than 20,000 Koi lovers visited the show from all over the world. The reason that they have so many visitors is partly due to the gardens being so famous. It’s a three daylong event with so many stands/vendors that you cannot help but see all the latest things for our hobby. For example you could see several drum filters that are actually coming from the aquaculture market. These kind of mechanical filters are used to remove waste from water to improve the biological performance of your filter system. The prices are coming down but even today it’s not very cheap and for most of us out of the budget.

Another interesting feature was a tube that would increase the oxygen content without creating a big frictional loss. I was quite impressed with this unit because it was creating small air bubbles by bending the flow. The smaller the air bubbles the better the oxygen transfer, and that means we can reduce the total airflow to minimize the nitrogen input. This is only possible with a very efficient device. Unfortunately, at the time they could not give me figures to calculate the efficiency rate.

There were also several heat pumps at the show that would help us heat our ponds more efficient. The best one was from a Tjech company that will work at below 20 degree Celsius. Incredible! Most heat pumps cannot operate below 5 degrees Celsius, other heat pump suppliers have not yet thought about this and could prove problematic for Koi ponds in colder climates like Canada. Another idea to help prevent heat-loss was the use of different types of heat covers. Some of them where very simple and again the Tjech company was showing several different methods.

For the high-tech boys there was more to see from the company Koi Guard. They have made a fully automated Nexus unit that would clean itself automatically. What was even more impressive was the fact you could check all your ponds details such as water parameters on the Internet in real-time. This is of course very handy when you are travelling and with a web cam you could even see your Koi. As you can see web technology is now becoming available for all Koi hobbyist.

If that wasn’t enough there was a company that uses water-jet cutting technology to cut beautiful Koi out of stone. But, most of us were more interested in the Koi. For the children there was a very big Koi that was a good spot for taking pictures. I really enjoyed it because this is what makes it more attractive for the new generation of Koi keepers. The amount of Koi entered in the 15Th Holland Koi show was enormous and even vaster than the previous years.

This year was the first time they awarded a Grand champion A and Grand champion B, this was given a lot of discussion. Most Koi keepers where confused about this decision because in their mind there is only one grand Champion. But to make it clearer Grand Champion A was the winner from the Gosanke group and Grand champion B was the winner from the non-Gosanke group. Very confusing but for me the Grand Champion was the kohaku from Jan Marijsen. The koi came from Sakai Koi farm and was supplied by Danny de Schrijver from Koi-San. Jan Marijsen had also won the Mature Champion, this Koi had a beautiful head and I liked it more than the Grand Champion.

Jan and I had some very interesting conversation at the bar, he likes to keep his water as green as possible so that you cannot see the Koi. For him it is important to give them natural food. The second thing for him was he feels that the Koi pond needs to be an indoor pond.

There were so many winners and pictures are better than words. The show was fantastic but in my opinion is becoming to commercial and the quality of Koi was not very high compared with other shows around the world. However, if you want to have a good day out with your family then this would be the show to visit because you can see almost everything to do with Koi and beside that the gardens are beautiful.

To plan for next years show, visit www.hollandkoishow.nl

Oct/Nov ‘07 - Subscribe now!