Fished out

Last night after work, I fished the remaining fish out of the gloop that was the water feature in the garden. It was full of green sludge, water if you will, that looked as though it could support nothing useful and I had an aquarium inside ready and waiting for the occupants of the feature.

When I had the bright idea to have a water feature in the garden, about 4 years ago (or thereabouts), I didn't intend to have fish but a neighbour who had a pond full of koi carp and other fish let me have some pond weed for oxygenation purposes. So I filled the tub up with weed, rocks and gravel as well as water and sat and enjoyed the water irises, both blue and yellow, as they bloomed in the middle of the lawn.

It was about 4 months later when I was sitting on the grass, admiring the beetles and water boatmen on the surface of the water when I noticed movement. Somehow when I had brought the weed from my neighbours pond it had contained eggs and I was suddenly the owner of some tiny little fishlets.

I originally counted 22 fishlets in the pond, and various of them succumbed to cats, ill-health, the visit of a heron to the garden and cold winters and last night I took out 10 medium sized fish from the tub and relocated them to the aquarium in the kitchen where they are happily swimming around wondering why they could suddenly see movement after months in green sludge.

Chances are that eventually they will get far too big for the tank and will have to go into a pond but for the moment, my total number of pets has just gone up and I am trying to think of names for them all. Pics will follow when I find my camera in the chaos that is the house in disorder.