Welcome to Steel City Koi

Welcome reader,

I would firstly like to introduce myself, my name is Will Harvey. I am the founder of steel city koi and I am 18 years old - which probably makes me the youngest koi dealer in the UK. 

How did I get into selling koi carp? When I left school at 16, I was replacing a small in-ground pond with my dad and I became really engaged within the project, researching how things worked and what they did. Prior to this, we had a small 4000L garden pond which was filtered by an eazypod. The upgrade was almost finished, when the liner and bottom drain needed fitting, something I had no clue about. Unbeknownst to me, a friend of my dad was actually manufacturing pond liners and temporary koi vats, and he was coming to help us fit the bottom drain. Dave saw my passion for the hobby and offered me a job working with him at Showkoi, from there I then became more involved in the hobby and wanted to buy some fish to stock my new pond. I was introduced to a wholesaler in the trade and bought some fish. Using the old pump and easy pod and a kindly donated koi vat from Dave, I attempted to grow the fish through winter. Noticing the electric costs, and after a few conversations with my dad, I decided to buy an additional 50 fish to sell in the spring to cover the costs of my fish. From there I never looked back, within a month of buying the initial 20 fish, I had gained over 250 more, a polytunnel and another heated growing pond. The spring then rolled around and covid was introduced, and I began selling my fish. I was later offered a job working at a major wholesaler within the industry, where I learnt the majority of my knowledge, watching fish growing from 12-14cm up to 45-50cm in just one season was incredible and taught me the importance of keeping good water and giving the fish the best environment to allow them to thrive rather than survive. I had already noticed a gap in the market, as there are only a handful of reputable dealers local to me, and a few of them being garden centre chains. Using my knowledge I had built up through my own experiences and through work, I set up Steel City Koi in March of 2021. Last year I did really well using eBay and facebook to move stock and also offer reasonable prices for good quality imported Japanese koi carp. But this year I fancy another challenge to push this business idea further, a new website, industry leading images, new marketing techniques and dipping my toe into dry goods. 

For those that have read this far, thank you for reading, this is my first of many blog posts that will be coming onto this site. I hope to see you in person at some point, whether it be for a chat, a new fish or even to collect food or treatments.

Will