Fish Stories

We had about 15 fish after a couple of years. The water filtration system was powered by a submersible pump. We awoke one morning to find many of our fish were floating on top of the water - dead! The coolant oil (vegetable oil) of the pump had leaked and produced a barrier on top of the water, preventing the air from oxygenating the water, so the fish suffocated ... all but 5 of them.

Once we got the water oxygenated again the surviving fish rapidly recovered. I purchased a surface pump and redid the filtration system and I am happy to say that we have had no more problems with it. It was a sad, and very expensive lesson. I'll never use a submersible pump again.

Our fish have remained very healthy for the most part. One that died was a goldfish that grew fairly large. We called him 'Salmon' because he sent alot of time trying to swin up the waterfall! He grew to be about 1 foot long!

One of our original koi is called Blue. He is a dark gray fish about 32 inches long with 'German Scales' that look like armour plating on his back and sides. He is

probably a varient of a 'Magoi' - . He developed what has turned out to be

a tumor on his tail fin, and on both sides. It is about 3 inches in diameter! I did a major cleaning of the pond last week (6-27-2008) and I was able to examine the growth close up. It really is an ugly mass!

We currently have 6 fish in our pond. Two of them have been here 10 years or more. One of them is 'Blue' and the other is 'Whitey'. 'Whitey' resembles a 'Bekko' and is also about 32 inches long. Our next oldest Koi is 'Fandango' who is a 'Sanke' and is about 15 inches long. We recently purchased 3 more fish. 'Sergio' is another 'Sanke', but more orange than red. He is about 9 inches long. The last two are 'Patina' - a 'Kin

Kabuto' - metalic copper colored with black markings at about 4 inches,

and 'Smokey' - a 'Shiro Utsuri' - white with black markings, also at about 4 inches.