A Fish Story....

a migration from the outdoors to the basement and into a fifty gallon tank. The raccoon did have a few fish to eat and shared with her one baby, but I did have four fish survive her late night snacking. The two koi's and two goldfish were needing to be brought in for the winter. They were in a stock tank that I have buried a foot into the ground. I like to keep them there so I can set up pumps and drain it dry, being sure that I can net them all in the fall. I left two koi out many years ago in the natural pond, one of them that was at least 10 inches long, and they both died. So I bring them in each year.





The leaves have already started to collect in the tank so I have to net loads of leaves out and each time check to be sure there isn't a fish among them. I took pictures of the one koi in the net and one of the goldfish as seen below.





Goldfish place in the outside, in a natural setting, develop very bright colors. The camera has over saturated this gold fish but the picture at the bottom shows that they do get very orange. I think that it is the sunlight and natural greens that bring on such good color.





As the tank is being emptied, you can see that it isn't a very pretty sight.





I pumped water from the tank into an eave trough and put it into my natural pond. I am not this junky but the wastebasket was laying there drying out from being washed.




The air was 35 degrees F. and the water they were in was the same, so they had to sit in buckets downstairs while the water warmed up. A couple hours later I transferred them to the fish tank. The water is colored from the tannins that comes from aging leaves.



As my water clears in the basement tank, I will probably share some more pictures of the four. It will be my task to stay away for pet stores and buy more fish for this tank. Thanks for reading...