When visiting a show or discussing fish with other hobbyists, you will often hear the term 'size class' being discussed, but what does this mean, and how is it relevant to you as an exhibitor?

With such a large number of koi being exhibited at a show, there has to be a way of segmenting the entries into groups to allow for a fair judging process to take place, after all, it would be unfair to try and compare a 15-cm fish with one of 75cm, as such the entries are put into both Show Classes and size classes, at a UK National show there are typically seven size classes*, these are:

• Size 1 - Above 15cm to 25cm
• Size 2 - Above 25cm to 35cm
• Size 3 - Above 35cm to 45cm
• Size 4 - Above 45cm to 55cm
• Size 5 - Above 55cm to 65cm
• Size 6 - Above 65cm to 75cm
• Size 7 - Above 75cm

* On occasion and where entry numbers suggest it will be beneficial, an 8th size class will be added, when this happens, size 7 will be restricted to fish of 75cm - 85cm, and the new size 8 will take all fish over 85cm

Closed shows, typically being smaller events with fewer fish in the competition, will often decide to reduce the number of size classes they have, this is done to ensure a good level of competition within the classes, after all, there's little point in having 91 individual size classes if the show is only expecting to see 100 fish exhibited and there's little point in having a class for fish over 75cm if the organiser's aren't expecting to see any fish of that size. Quite often, this reduction will see just 3 or 4 size classes being used, and example below:

• Size 1 - Above 15cm to 35cm
• Size 2 - Above 35cm to 45cm
• Size 3 - Above 45cm to 55cm
• Size 4 - Above 55cm