WHERE WE'RE HEADED
A small American koi farm with Japanese standards.
We're not trying to be the biggest koi farm in America. We're
trying to be one of the best small ones — a family operation
with the discipline, the standards, and the patience to do this
work the way it should be done. Everything we're building toward
serves that single goal.
This page is about what comes next.
A GROWING BREEDER NETWORK
Right now, we source our Japanese imports from a small group of
respected Niigata breeders. That number is going to grow.
Every year, we plan to expand our breeder relationships,
bringing in new bloodlines, new varieties, and new perspectives.
The Japanese koi industry is built around a network of
specialist breeders, each with their own focus, their own
bloodlines, and their own genetic contribution to the hobby. We
want our farm to reflect that depth, to be a place where
serious hobbyists can come and find quality examples of a wide
range of varieties, all sourced from breeders we know and trust.
Our Japanese Breeders page will continue to grow with us.
Every farm we add gets named, profiled, and made visible to our
customers.
DIRECT RELATIONSHIPS WITH JAPANESE BREEDERS
For now, we work through trusted importers to source our
Japanese koi. That's the standard path for most American koi
farms, and it's served us well as we've gotten our breeding
program off the ground. But it's not where we want to stay.
Our long-term goal is to develop direct relationships with the
Japanese breeders we work with.
That means traveling to Niigata.
Visiting the farms in person. Spending time with the breeders.
Building the kind of trust that's only earned over years of
repeated visits, honest dealings, and showing up consistently.
The koi industry in Japan is built on personal relationships.
The breeders we want to work with aren't going to sell direct to
someone they've never met, and they shouldn't. Earning that
level of trust takes time, and we're prepared to put in the
years it takes.
One day, we hope to walk through the mud ponds of the farms
whose koi we've spent years raising. To meet the people behind
the bloodlines. To shake hands with the breeders, share a meal,
and become a small part of the network that's kept Japanese koi
breeding alive for over two centuries.
That's where we're headed.
EXPANDING THE FARM
Our existing land has room to grow, and we have plans to use it.
Right now we're in the middle of significant infrastructure work, repairing existing ponds, adding fencing and netting, and
building out our holding tank infrastructure. Over the coming
years, that work continues.
What's ahead:
- More mud ponds, including additional grow-out ponds and
dedicated breeding ponds for our expanding broodstock
- Concrete holding tanks to replace our current temporary setup,
with smaller tanks to follow for breeders and spawning
- A dedicated customer area separate from our breeding and
grow-out operations, so visitors can come, see the farm, and
shop in a space designed for them
- A display pond featuring our waterwheel, eventually surrounded
by waterfalls and fountains, stocked with some of our largest
breeding koi, a working example of what a beautiful koi pond
can look like
The customer area is a particularly exciting project. Right now,
customers who visit the farm see it as a working operation,
which has its own charm, but isn't really set up for browsing.
The long-term vision is a proper customer experience: shaded
viewing of holding tanks, comfortable space to spend time with
the fish, and the kind of environment where choosing a koi feels
like the special occasion it should be.
OUR BREEDING PROGRAM, LONG-TERM
Over the coming years, we're working toward a broodstock of
around 120 carefully selected breeders, enough to maintain
genetic diversity across all the varieties we work with, with
multiple breeding trios for the Gosanke varieties and at least
one trio per variety for everything else.
We'll keep importing every year, keep grading hard, keep
replacing breeders as better fish come in. The breeding program
is always being improved, never settled.
We may eventually move toward hand-breeding the way some
Japanese farms do. The advantage of hand-breeding is volume,
significantly higher numbers of fry per spawn, but for now, we
don't need that volume. Selective trios and natural spawning are
giving us excellent results, and we'd rather do natural spawning
well than hand-breeding hastily. It's a possibility for the
future, not a destination we're rushing toward.
Our color projects will continue. Ki Showa, Ki Sanke, and
whatever else catches our curiosity over the years. We may
produce something beautiful and unique to Waterwheel. We may
not. Either way, the work continues.
BECOMING A FARM WORTH KNOWING
The long-term vision is this: a small American koi farm that has
earned a reputation, among hobbyists, among other breeders, and
eventually among the Japanese koi community itself, for holding
itself to a real standard.
We want Waterwheel to be the kind of farm where:
- A first-time hobbyist can buy their first koi and feel
welcomed into the hobby
- A serious collector can find a fish they'd be proud to own for
decades
- A Japanese breeder can look at our work and recognize that we
did it right
- The people who buy from us stay in touch for years, and feel
like part of the family
That's not a marketing position. It's the actual goal. And it's
the standard everything else on this page is built to serve.
A FAMILY BUSINESS, FOR GENERATIONS
The last piece of the long-term vision is the most personal one:
we want Waterwheel to be a family business that lasts.
The work we're doing now, the infrastructure, the bloodlines,
the breeding program, the customer relationships, is being
built to outlast us.
Our children grow up around the farm.
They'll know these ponds, these fish, and this work from the
time they're small. If they want to continue it, the foundation
will be there. If they choose other paths, the farm will still
exist as something we built together.
Either way, we're not just running a business. We're building
something. And that takes time.
We're not in a hurry. Good koi farms never are.