Koi

Ever since the blue letters spelling Columbia Studios appeared on the gates of the former MGM lot last month, Hollywood has been rife with speculation about Sony Corp.'s supposedly grand plans for the property. At least a few things are clear: Yes, Sony's Columbia Pictures unit envisions some fancy new buildings on the Culver City movie lot that it acquired from Time Warner Inc.--sooner or later.

The pond churned in a Technicolor boil. Big, gaping fish mouths surged to the surface as Joseph Akiyama cast feed pellets on the water. The splashing increased. The vivid colors of the koi--red, black, white, gold and metallic black--became a blur. "They'll eat a lot," Akiyama sighed, the gurgle of a waterfall at his goldfish farm almost drowning out his soft voice. "It's a good thing their teeth are in their throats," added his wife, Sumie.

If you want to get under Bill Ward's skin, really make him grit his teeth and turn testy, just call them "those big goldfish." Goldfish? Hardly. These fish, which Ward helps raise on a pond-dotted parcel in the rolling hills of Fallbrook, can sell for up to $150,000. They're nurtured like prized racehorses. If they're ill, surgery is sometimes performed. Some have been known to live more than 200 years. No, these aren't something you pick up at a dime store.

Moved by reports that Descanso Gardens may have lost up to 90 expensive Japanese fish to thieves, a collector said she will donate about 25 brightly colored koi to the Los Angeles County-run arboretum in La Canada Flintridge. "I'm getting to the age where I can't maintain my fish, and I know they'll have a good home at Descanso," said Evelyn O'Neil, a 65-year-old retired nursing assistant from Mission Hills.

Troubled by the disappearance of 60 expensive Japanese fish, officials at Descanso Gardens have accepted a Norco firm's offer to implant some of the remaining koi with a silicon chip that would provide identification in case of theft. Frank Manwarren, a Glendale resident and sales representative for American Veterinary Identification Services , said he asked his firm to donate the devices after reading about the suspected theft of the fish several weeks ago.

Something fishy is going on at Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge. Employees say about 60 koi--which look like oversized goldfish and glide gracefully through Descanso's ponds and streams--have disappeared in the past three months. At first, officials suspected that raccoons and blue herons, two natural predators that prowl the Los Angeles County-run gardens, were feasting on the expensive Japanese fish.

American carp are garbage fish good for grinding into gefilte or for denigrating as drowsy targets at bowfishing contests. They eat weeds like underwater lawn mowers. Their flavor is that of a pincushion dipped in Pennzoil. Carp are a palatable food in Europe and Asia, but that's where they also consider monkey brains and thymus glands to be good eating. On the other end of these scales, there's the koi.

To hear Chris Bushman tell it, the colorful carp called koi may not seem likely candidates for household pets, but their tendency to live long lives does have its reward. "If you get a pet koi when you are a kid, it'll last you all your life," the 38-year-old film laboratory manager said. "It's not like a cat or a dog." Bushman should know. The North Hollywood resident, a koi collector for eight years, served as chairman of the recent U. S.