On Jan. 18, 2023, Fitz’s Fish Ponds received its largest shipment to date. It included 308 boxes with 2,992 koi. The shipment weighed 11 tons and contained some of the most beautiful koi the United States has ever seen. This is the single-handed largest koi shipment that has ever been brought over to the United States from Japan. To pull it off successfully, so many things, from paperwork and prepping the tanks to organizing team members, had to be done just right.
FFP arranged for six trucks and about 15 team members, customers and volunteers to receive the koi from JFK airport. Our friends from Garden State Koi, who also had koi in this shipment, came with two trucks and four team members to help. Tim Waddington from Quality Nishikigoi flew in from the U.K. to be here for the shipment as well. Back at the farm, the Fish Care Team worked to ensure all the tanks were prepped and ready for the new shipment of fish to acclimate properly. We had approximately 35 people at the farm helping to unbox, organize and carefully get the koi into the correct tanks. The entire day took a true team effort.
This shipment included koi from the top breeders in Japan. We bought from Marusei, Shintaro, Shinoda, Maruhiro, Iwashita, Marusada, Chogoro, Hiroi, Masaki Aoki, Marusho, Torazo, Hiroi Seji and more. The sizes ranged from as small as 30 cm to our largest koi ever at 105 cm– a beautiful Mukashi Ogon from Marudo Koi Farm.
Overall, the day was a great success. We were able to facilitate the import of all these beautiful koi, not only for our farm but also for the many customers that came to Japan with us in the fall and hand selected their own koi. It is very comforting to know that the fish are now stateside at our facility and that they all arrived in great condition.
The koi will now go through our quarantine process, which takes about 30 days. After this, we will open up our farm for customers to check out our amazing new stock. If you are interested in koi or want to come to the farm to see all these beautiful new koi, call AJ at 908/301-4722.
