Waterfall & New Fishies

With the waterfall almost complete, and with one lone fish (Ghandi), we decided it was time to start restocking the pond.

Thanks to Craigslist, we found Loyd & Karen, from whom we acquired five new koi last night. The smallest is a blue, probably a few months old, and the largest is a solid white about 3 years old. Ironically, it was those two who were the feistiest and kept jumping out of the cooler (in which we were transporting them) at the seller's house. Big White also did a bit of jumping around on the grass here at home before we chased him down and got him into the pond! (All others surrendered peacefully.)

This morning everyone's still in the pond (yay) and Ghandi seems ecstatic. They're all swimming happily over, under and around each other, like puppies at a dog park.

Happy Codependence Day!

Woohoo! I got a call this morning saying that the stock tank is sitting at the shipping company, awaiting delivery. They'll deliver Monday. That means I, with my bursitis-ridden arms, and Steve, fighting the flu, will spend July 4th weekend prepping the appr0priate spot in which to place said tank and get it a-filtering once again!

Stay tuned...

On Hold

Last Tuesday I was searching the web for what-the-heck to do about the crack in the stock tank / filter box. Someone said, "Hey, aren't those things warrantied for a year?" Being the receipt-hoarder that I am, I was able to put my hands on the evidence within minutes. The tank was purchased 6/12/08. Wow! Something failed WITHIN its warranty period for a change!

I called Rubbermaid and the exchange was easy-peazy. All I had to do was fax them my receipt and they would send me a replacement tank. Yes, the old tank is recyclable, but I don't want to spend the time and effort to chop it up and throw it in the curbside recycling can, so I've decided to make it a secondary compost container.

So now we've been without filtration for - what - six weeks? Eight weeks? Miraculously, the pond is pretty dang clear. Perhaps it's because we have only one little lonely koi in there now. Perhaps it's the unseasonably cool weather we've been having. Don't know, don't care. Just glad that for now it can remain as it is without further disaster. When the new tank arrives I'll tackle the project anew.

Fuck.

Since my last post, we've lost everyone else except Ghandi. I thought I had a leak in the liner, but miraculously it seems to have healed itself. I'm still working on trying to fix the filter box so I can re-use it. The jury's out. My arms hurt. I've been getting bids from pond companies to just fucking rebuild the whole fucking thing. I still haven't made up my mind what I'm going to do, though. Which is making Steve crazy. He's still not used to my Geminiacle, mercurial thought processes. I kind of know what I want to do, but I'm limited in physical strength/ability, time, and...ta-da...money. So while Steve's washed his hands of the whole affair, I'm not giving up. It'll just take me longer to get it all together.

The carnage continues

3/25 - I'm in Spokane on business. Steve and Sara remove approximately 1/3 of the total water volume from the pond and add PimaFix.

3/29 - The poor sot I was calling Pinky (because he was a white butterfly who had turned so pink with the hemorrhagic crap) dies.

3/30 - Large yellow butterfly dies. Pond was refilled to capacity. Fish seemed to enjoy the fresh water.

4/2 - Torpedo, the really large standard koi, is dead today.

God, this is bullshit. Times like this (and this is - what - the third pond holocaust I've had?) make me want to just fill in the damn thing or throw in some mosquito fish and plants and let it be a water garden. When I tried that with crappy goldfish, though, I missed having koi.

We now have the following koi left alive:

• Bonawitz, the chocolate koi given to me as a gift by Marcia
• Sparkles, the shimmery white butterfly koi
• Sparkles' evil twin, the non-shimmery white standard koi
• Ghandi, the butterfly that started out with one simple black dot on his forehead
• One yellow standard koi (no name)

Still hangin' on

The remaining fish - there are eight of them - are hanging on. Quite well, actually, or so it seems. Everyone seems to be eating, and they've been more active since the water change. They're still leaping and breaching; it must really suck to have an itch and no arms to scratch it!

Will it work?

The fish seem to be appreciative of the new water. They're more active and I get a happier vibe from them than I was getting yesterday morning.

I'm feeding them antibiotic-laden food once or twice a day. Not too much at a time, but I'll feed them as much as they want cuz I want to get that medicine into them!

I'm also going to put a whole bunch of anacharis in the filterbox. It can take over in there, for all I care; the box needs plants and the fish won't eat it if I stick it in there, and it'll just act as another filter media, etc.

So there you go.

Emergency Measures

I've removed approximately 3/4 of the water volume from the pond. The hose is refilling is at this time, and I'm dumping in salt and dechlorinator. While I realize this action is stressing the fish while they're in a weakened state, I felt the risk of NOT doing it was greater than the risk of doing it. And I'm trying to put enough salt in to help the fish heal, but not so much that it will damage the plants...although I care more about the fish than the plants right now.

I really wish I knew more about wtf I'm doing with all this. I feel like a very, very bad koi mama right now.

Hemorrhagic Septicemia

I think we've figured out what got Red Guy, as the others are now showing signs of illness that we would not have been able to see on such an orange fish. The others are growing relatively lethargic and showing signs of red tissue here and there. One little white fish with a red splotch on his forehead now looks like he's been in the sun too long - he's nearly red all over where he should be white! Torpedo has redness around the base of his dorsal fin. No one has any open sores that I can see, which means this bacteria is systemic. That is not good.

R.I.P. Red Guy

Sadly, Red Guy passed away today. Don't know why.

Funny, many may think, that one can get emotionally attached to a fish. But you can. They're like little water-kitties. They have smarts and personalities.

Red Guy will be missed.

Skippy Filter skipping out

Okay. We've given this thing lots and lots of time and it's still not living up to its reputation. What gives?

Steve thought it might not be working right because we were moving the water through it too quickly. No time for the gunk to stick to the pads? Fast current washing old gunk back into the pond? So he changed out the 3500 gph pump for an 1800 gph pump. That was about a week ago.

The water is still not clear. We can see about four inches down. There is still plenty of particulate washing around.

Everyone says wait...wait...wait longer. Seems like nine months should be enough.