Sex On The Beach

The fish were having sex in my pond this morning. From what I understand, this only happens if conditions are just right, so yay, right?

I've learned that Foothill is a girl.

I think Dave's a girl, too.

All others appear to be either boys or lesbians, as they were participating heartily in the chasing, bumping and flashing. (Not that kind of flashing. Flashing is the term used for when the fishies jump and flip around up over the surface of the water.)

The orgy lasted a good couple of hours. (You go, boys!) Now there are ten bajillion eggs stuck in and amongst the algae on the sides of the pond.

We'll try to figure out a way to create a barrier with some old shade cloth we have - see if we can't protect those eggs from their cannibalistic parents. Stay tuned...

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!