Fish

So, I went and got some pretty good-sized gold fish from a person that has a pond in Sun Lakes.
He was giving them away. He had both Koi and goldfish, I would have liked to have gotten at least 1 Koi - but when I got to his house, another person was already there that also wanted Koi. They were hiding big-time. The owner greeted me and stated that they were not coming out and blamed it on Herring that were flying in and eating the fish.

I did not bother to correct the man - Herring is a fish; Heron is the bird that flies around these parts eating fish out of people's ponds. If you don't believe me, you are welcomed to look it up and correct me if I am wrong.

Regardless, the fish, over the years, had multiplied and he wanted to get rid of some of them to individuals. I've seen Koi going for big bucks. He has 24" inch "plus" sized Koi that he could have sold for a good deal of money. Not. Just wanted to give them out, big heart, nice guy, reminded me of myself in many of my dealings. Koi simply were not available - how he is going to catch them I don't know, cause' they must have a 6th sense and where they were hiding? NO way to get them out of there excepting on their own free will.

Well, the goldfish were not near as skittish, he asked me if I would be happy with them instead? Of course. They're FREE, that's a nice language. 2 ducks walked up on his sidewalk entrance to his home - through a partition no less - wanting their daily feeding. Funny creatures.

Anyway, I ended up with 4 very good sized fish. Not TOO big. I put 2 in each pond and came to regret that decision. For whatever reason, the lower pond isn't "nice" to the fish. The upper pond, yes. They all went into immediate shock, however, which sent me scurrying to the place I love to hate: Walmart - for some stuff that does whatever it does to help fish adapt to new environments. I put that stuff into both ponds and within 15 minutes, the fish in the upper pond were scurrying about as if nothing ever happened, the fish in the lower pond, however, were just sitting there, looking rather lifeless. One of them was hovering on a shelf - I decided to put my 5 gallon bucket in there and see if I could catch him. Easy. Dumped him into the other pond. About an hour later he was scurrying about with his buddies. I could not catch the other one in the lower pond, he was hiding out on the bottom and I do not have a fish net - yet. Hopefully he survives the night, I will catch him tomorrow and all of them will be in the one pond that IS deeper and has more swimming space.

I have 4 holes dug out for posts and I will be putting in the posts tomorrow to keep the sun off of the ponds. It's not even 100 degrees yet and they weren't getting warm, but you could feel the temp of the water going up. It will take longer to get the waterfall installed. I FINALLY decided where to put the thing. Actually, I will have 2 falls. One will be larger than the other. I need the second to house the "bio-filter" setup - it will be just large enough to have an enclosure for it where I can slide it in and out for cleaning purposes.

I am going to also have to get some stuff to get rid of excessive algae. I have acquired lillies from some ponds that were totally green - I don't want green ponds. They don't have to be totally clear, but I want to be able to see into them. The point is that algae is all over those plants and it is starting to cloud the water.

My small ponds will have different treatment requirements, I am guessing, than much larger ponds. I have that UV filter, but it's missing the part that makes it work and I cannot order a new replacement. I have seen several ponds now that have very little algae problems by having the water travel through such a filter.

Tired. Time to go to bed.

G'nite.

ben