Always Something With The Fish

Sometimes I think the best way to ease a worried mind is to throw yourself into something like a great big project.

So today that's what we did.

My granddaughter, her husband, and Superbaby have been staying with us and they've always taken a very gratifying interest in the koi and every aspect of koi care. They were here when we finally had our spawning and they were very instrumental in collecting so many eggs that we had such a large hatch.

So I've been musing about what to do with the babies. We have a large pond with 13 large koi. We have a smaller pond for the purpose of quarantining new fish to be sure they're disease free before introducing them to the large koi population. That pond used to have 3 grown goldfish only Then this Spring just to make the koi look bad, they started spawning like madmen or mad fish. There were so many baby goldfish in there that when you fed them the surface of the water just churned with fish. Finally we had to release the 3 parents into the wild to stop the population explosion.

Then we had the aquarium and two tubs with baby koi. And the koi are the fish I value.

When we had to find places to put the unhatched eggs back in June, we removed the 3 fish that were in the aquarium. There was one algae eater and two long, skinny, fast-as-lightening tropical fish. We put them in the goldfish pond, crossing our fingers that they would be fine as long as the weather was warm.

Today we decided that we'd take all the goldfish out of their little pond and put all the baby koi into it at least until cold weather sets in (which I realize is probably sooner than we were thinking).

So we netted all the goldfish and put them in two buckets. Big Daddy was in there (more commonly known as Fat Bastard) and we put him in the big pond with the big, honkin' koi and crossed our fingers again. Then we put two more suspected baby koi in the tubs.

Now we had two buckets teeming with baby goldfish and the two long, skinny, fast-as-lightening tropical fish who seemed to have grown significantly. We dumped the algae eater back in the aquarium assuming that he was interested in eating koi eggs and itty, bitty, tiny koi fry and not the slightly bigger little guys that are in there now. Then we came in for lunch. Before we did I noticed that a lot of the goldfish in one of the buckets were hovering near the top and I commented that I thought they needed more air. But you know me and thinking I had more time, I thought to take care of it after lunch.

When I walked back out, one of the long, skinny, fast-as-lightening tropical fish was laying on the ground, dead of course and the other long, skinny, fast-as-lightening tropical fish was laying in the bottom of the bucket, also dead. And the little goldfish were dying in droves.

So I raced to Meijer and bought two aerators and the necessary accessories to keep alive the goldfish that we were desperately trying to figure out how to get rid of. $20 to keep fish alive that we didn't want...... at all. Sometimes I defy all logic.

They're doing quite well now. They have plenty of air and I'm confident they'll be fine until morning. But what do we do with them then? Any ideas? If we put them in a pond somewhere, would they upset the ecological balance? I need some ideas.

Oh, and as for Big Daddy alias Fat Bastard, he was swimming around happily, came up to partake of dinner when we fed everybody, and generally seemed to adjust very well. That is until all the giant koi came down to that corner to clean up the dinner scraps that had drifted over there and had their usual feeding frenzy. After that, we didn't see him again. I guess he's either scared to death and hiding or eaten to death and dead.

So the day was successful. The small pond is clean and waiting for baby koi and I was so busy that I my mind was diverted from that uneasy feeling. I'm pretty sure it was your prayers that set me on the road to that project. Thank you all very much.