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.

Where Have All The Fishies Gone?

As I've reported extensively, we had our long awaited koi spawning on June 28th. Since then, a good deal of our time and effort has been focused on bringing these little tiny, fragile babies to adulthood. We suffered extensive losses that I talked about on July 28th but after that the numbers seemed to stabilize quite nicely.

Then we went on our short vacation and came back to find that one of the tubs outside has once again suffered significant losses. In fact, when I first checked on it, I was hard pressed to find more than 2 or 3 babies in it where there had been a minimum of 50 or 60. We had very responsible, dedicated caretakers and they reported that the tub was never left uncovered but that they, too had noticed declining number in that tub.

So I studied it very carefully. I was trying to find more than the 2 or 3 babies that I had initially seen when I saw something else. A monster if you will. A true mutant. He slid so swiftly and stealthily from one hiding place to the next that I almost didn't believe I had really seen him. He was easily 10 times bigger than the biggest babies we had until then. And all of a sudden the mystery was solved.

I had read that cannibalism could be an issue with these guys if the sizes became too disparate but I'd not seen any evidence of that being a problem...yet. But now I knew where all the little fishies had gone and I knew why Big Daddy was growing disproportionaly compared to the rest of the babies. He was feasting on his brothers and sisters. That fat bastard!

It was a task but I finally captured him. You might think that he was summarily executed but hold your horses. A fast growing koi is a koi with a great attribute and rather than punish him, he was to be rewarded. I removed the large goldfish from the goldfish pond and put him in with the baby goldfish. If he feasts on them, it's okay because I don't have much love for goldfish - only koi. But he won't because most of them are about the same size as him. So he's safe from big fish eating him and he's in an environment where he should continue to grow fast.

After I captured him, I left him in this bucket while I tried to figure out what do do with him:

Later on I checked on him and he had seemed to have disappeared. I had to look closely to see that he had cloaked himself with the one leaf in the bucket. See how smart and wily he is?


Now I know where all the fishies have gone and I know that I have one smart, wily, fat bastard to nurture in place of about 40 babies. But I'm just gonna call him Big Daddy from now on.

Oh and don't forget to leave a comment in yesterday's post for a chance at those valuable prizes that I'm offering to celebrate my 100th post anniversary. Hurry 'cause so far all the entrants have a whopping one in five chance of winning!