I Can't Stop Moving

In an earlier post I reported that I had caught seven baby koi in the goldfish pond and moved them to the aquarium in the house. I really couldn't feel comfortable leaving them outside in the small, rather shallow pond over winter.

Since I felt better about moving seven of them, I went fishing again. This time I caught sixteen more.


This was very encouraging to me because I had now retrieved 23 of the baby koi that I had so recklessly dumped into that little tiny pond. Up until then, I wouldn't have put really BIG money on finding even 10 of them in there.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a new plan started to present itself. Maybe I should move all those babies into the house. There probably weren't that many left out there anyway and at least I wouldn't have to worry about the remainder of them becoming encased in ice in a pond where the bottom is above the frost line.

So I had a big ol' fishing expedition. And I caught 50 more babies. Here's part of that group.

Mr. Right and I finally culled a few. I think we lost a total of eight. Some just died (probably from the stress of being moved constantly) and some were so misshapen that it didn't make sense to keep them. This part still makes me sad.

A day later I was gazing into that almost empty goldfish pond when I spotted two dark colored babies swimming across the bottom. And I was determined to get them.

Those two turned into about 10. And as I was scooping the last two, I slipped and fell. But that's a story for another day.

We've set up a second aquarium for the bigger babies. There is already such a size disparity that I can hardly believe it and I've read that koi are given to cannibalism if some get too big while others remain very tiny. So as the big ones continue to get even bigger in the old aquarium, I choose one of them a day to move to the new aquarium for the big kids. And so it goes.

I just know that next year it'll be easier; but for now........ I just can't stop moving these baby koi.