fish kill

It looks like there was a gas attack on our pond. All of our goldfish are dead. I'd like to think it was no one's fault really - there was kind of a perfect storm of conditions which contributed to the untimely death of Smoky, Larry, Darrell, Blackie and Swimmie. But, in truth, better pond maintenance might have prevented this.

Dismal track record
This isn't our first fish death. No - Caspar Weinberger and Blaze died under less than favorable circumstances. And one day Darrell and Darrell disappeared. Just vanished. We suspected the al Kitti insurgency. I also accidentally poisoned some bottom feeders once, too with algicide before I started blogging. Ooops.


Remembrance of things past

How did it happen?
During the morning of the snow, the pond didn't exactly freeze over, but slushed over - to a depth of about three inches. I'd never really seen that before, but figured that it was ok. You shouldn't really let a pond freeze over - not because of the cold, goldfish can stand the cold - but because of the gas created by rotting vegetation and fish poo and fish breath exhalation. I was pretty sure the fish were alive that morning, I think I saw them moving around and Fancy was messing around in the pond, pushing the slush aside trying to get at the fish.

It warmed up by the afternoon and hasn't frozen over since. But the fish must have died that day without me really noticing. (Fish are a little bit boring in winter). The Vol-in-Law noticed they were dead this weekend. We haven't found all the bodies, but there were enough floaters to bode ill and we didn't see any additional movement this weekend.

Our plan for victory
Now some might question our pond tactics and some might ask if we should have had a pond in the first place. Doubters. Sceptics. Fish-and-freedom-haters. Now is the time to reinforce failure our fish stock with a surge in goldfish numbers.

Just kidding. I think we've decided that with a baby on the way maybe we shouldn't really be in pond business anymore. Those things are really nothing but fish charnel houses at best and toddler drowners at worst.

I've enjoyed the pond and it helped us use a space that although sunny and sheltered, was paved over and not used for much else. But ponds are trouble and clearly we're not cut out for fish husbandry. I'm going to drain the plastic tub, backfill it with soil and grow tomatoes there instead.



Tomatoes aren't as interesting as fish. Plus without a pond, we'll actually have to remember to give our cats water.


Learning from our mistakes
The Vol-in-Law doesn't really like to talk about the dead fish. "Clearly, I'm not cut out for this. I can barely remember to give our cats food. And they're mammals, much more interesting than fish," he said guiltily on Sunday and then got up and fed the cats.

Yesterday I said to him "Doesn't it make you nervous that we're expecting a baby and we can't even keep goldfish alive?"

"Fish are very fragile and we'll try harder with a baby."