How it started

In 1999, Wes Parker walked into Pearls of Paradise in Dayton, Oregon, and bought his first koi. He was eight years into a wine career at the time — but standing there with that fish, he already knew he wanted to build a business around koi.

It took five years to do it right. Five years of learning the varieties, the bloodlines, the breeders, the water chemistry. In 2004, Children of the Sun Koi was officially founded. 

Built by hand. Ran by family.

Wes's twin sons, Ashton and Ezra, were two years old when the business started. They've never known a life without koi.
Today, at 22, Ashton runs sales, auctions, photography, and marketing. Ezra handles on-site sales, customer service, and logistics. They're learning every part of the business they'll inherit — a transition Wes set in motion with them back in 2019.
Wes also operates Koi Pond Cellars Winery, founded in 2011, and Parker Family Wine. The thread between them isn't coincidence: wine and koi are both premium products judged on lineage, terroir, and patience. Both teach you that the best things take time.

Why La Center, Washington.

Two reasons.

Proximity to Portland International Airport. Live koi cargo is the lifeblood of this business. Being 30 minutes from a major international airport means we can ship a fish to anywhere in the United States within 24 hours of purchase.

Water chemistry that matches Yamakoshi, Japan. Yamakoshi, in Niigata Prefecture, is the birthplace of nishikigoi — the koi we import. The water our koi are bred in matters. Most U.S. koi never see water like the ponds they came from. Ours do.

Recognized at the source.

In 2019, Wes was sponsored into Shinkokai — the All Japan Nishikigoi Promotion Association — and certified as a Shinkokai judge. His sponsors were Mitsinori Isa of Isa Koi Farm and Futoshi Mano of Dainichi Koi Farm.
Shinkokai membership has to be earned. Judge certification is rarer still. For an American importer to be sponsored by two of Japan's most respected breeders, and to be certified to officially judge koi in Japan, is not common. It's the credential Wes is proudest of.
He's also been invited to judge koi shows in Japan in the years since — a level of peer recognition most overseas importers never reach.

Our breeder relationships.

Every fall (October through mid-November) and again in the spring, Wes travels to Niigata to walk the ponds in person. These trips are not vacations. They're how we earn first-option access to fish before they reach the broader market.
Our longest relationship is with Isa Koi Farm. It began over a Sansai Showa — a beautiful fish Wes purchased early in the business, before he was sure he could sell it. Twenty years of dinners, late-night drinks, early-morning harvests, and first-option buying have followed.
The breeders we work with today include:

Dainichi Koi Farm — among the most decorated breeders in Japan; producers of multiple All Japan Grand Champion koi.
Isa Koi Farm — our longest-running partner. Renowned for Showa.
Torazo Koi Farm — exceptional Kohaku. The breeder of our biggest-ever win.
Ikarashi Koi Farm — Niigata-based, known for tategoi (developing koi with championship potential).
Maruyama Koi Farm — All Japan Grand Champion breeder.
Omosako Koi Farm — world-class Shiro Utsuri and Kujaku.
Kanno Koi Farm — championship-grade Goshiki.
Sakamaki Koi Farm — Niigata-based; partnered with us for direct sourcing in Yamakoshi.
Nagoshi Koi Farm — family-run, exceptional Kohaku, Showa, Sanke, and Ogon.
Otsuka, Izumiya, Marushin, Hiroi, Marusho (NND) and others.

We make champions.

The biggest win in our 20 years came in 2016. A Torazo Kohaku — 80 cm at yonsai (four years old) — that went on to win Grand Champion at three separate U.S. shows: Atlanta, North Carolina, and Louisville.
Recent wins include:

NMA ZNA Grand Champion — Showa (Dainichi) — St. Louis 2022
Best Grand Champion — Shiro Utsuri (NND Marusho) — Texas
NWKGC 2025 — Adult Champion, Baby Champion, and Young Champion awards

Many of the koi pictured on our champion gallery were sold to collectors. Others remain with us. All of them tell the same story: when you put a championship-quality fish in front of a serious keeper, the results follow.

Why buy from us instead of anyone else?

Because we put the work in.

Wes Parker has spent over two decades studying koi — back to the dial-up internet days when the only way to learn was to look, ask, and look again. The patterns. The bloodlines. The body conformation, head shape, the gap between head and dorsal fin, the post-dorsal length to the tail. The shoulder width. The fin rays — whether they bend within the rays themselves. The pectoral-to-tail proportion. The eye spacing. The hump. Whether there's a fat belly underneath. The sashi — the leading edge of pattern where red meets white. The fukurin pattern on metallic scales. Skin luster.

That eye is what separates COTSKoi.

We see a lot of koi that other dealers purchase that go on to win in America. Many of those still wouldn't pass our standard for what we put in front of our customers. A high-quality koi isn't always the highest grade available. We know the difference.

But there's something past the technical too.

A koi isn't just a fish. It's the story of the koi that swims up the river, past the waterfall at the Dragon Gate, and becomes a dragon. It's the zen of sitting at the pond's edge watching it move. It's the patience of watching a tosai grow into a yonsai, the patterns shifting and deepening with each year. It's the art, the appreciation, the respect, and the magic.

When we sell a koi, we sell that confidence. And we don't stop at the shipment — we train our customers, share what we know, and walk with them so they can take their koi to the next level too.

That's what Children of the Sun Koi is about.

If you've made it this far, you're probably the kind of person we built this for. Drop us a note. Tell us what you're looking for. We'll find it.

— Wes, Ashton, and Ezra Parker Children of the Sun Koi La Center, Washington

(360) 991-1117 wes@cotskoi.com