Should this concern me?

I was "surfin'" about and ran across a thread (which I do not think was here on DG) which posed a question:

"Is this "this" or "that?" (I think both "??" began with s)

Shimi vs. Sumi

The question, though I don't remember the exact one, asked if the black spot was sumi?? or something??

My question is:

What is this black spot?? and

Should this spot (has appeared on three of the koi) concern me?

Wish I could remember where that thread was.

Edit: I didn't find the original thread, but I saw in a recent one here what the term I forgot was. Shimi.

This message was edited Oct 10, 2008 7:50 PM

Here it is on Sparks

Here is a rear view of the first koi

It doesn't look like an ulcer (and I should know with all my fish illnesses this summer . . .lol). Perhaps it is just the sumi coming out on the fish. How are your fish behaving and are they eating and social?

BTW, how did you attach those "post-it-note-hands" to the picture? Way cool and helped to identify what you wanted us to see very easily.

Thanks for the response, MM. I've seen you have been having a trouble or two over there.

All the fish here are behaving perfectly. Very hungry, always schooling around the pond foraging. Race to the "feeding corner" every time someone comes near the pond.

Also:

First, I crop the photo in PhotoShop and then cut and past the crop into Adobe Illustrator.

In Illustrator, I use the line draw tool, which you can stylize with (I think) 32 different arrow heads ..... rotate, scale and "save for the web" as a jpeg. Plus, I have a whole catalog book full of vector clipart to use.

I am a graphic artist who does large-format printing, these are the tools of my trade.

Great job of "pointing out the problem" I am by far no expert but it looks to me like normal spots of color. Your fish are pretty young and have not finished showing their true adult coloration. From what I understand that can take a couple of years. What I would suggest to watch for are open spots in the skin, loose scales and flashing of the fish where they scrape themselved against things in the pond to get rid of parasites. They will "flash" their sides very quickly hence the name. Glad your guys are doing so well.

Looks like color to me. Especially the 3rd picture the spot on the right looks like color that has not developed fully yet.

I have a couple of websites bookmarked to help you with colors and names. Good resources. I can't find the site I really like that shows you how to pronounce the names also.

http://www.coloradokoi.com/koivarie.htm
http://www.pondkoi.com/koi_markings.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/PondSubWebIndex/koivarieties.htm
http://www.pondkoi.com/koi_categories.htm