The tragedy of the koi

Warning, this post contains graphic images of dead animals.



Do not scroll down if you are squeamish.




Today I took an art class, Mixed Media Collage with artist Jacki Long.

The four part series is at at Catalyst Art Studio, which is the studio space for Art Supply Warehouse in Westminster.

https://www.artsupplywarehouse.com/catalyst.php

I always enjoy Jacki's classes.


Today, I made this collage of a koi fish.

It's not quite finished yet.

I had fun, but I couldn't help being depressed, too.


This morning, I discovered some of my fish were dead.






I was closing a window overlooking the pond, and I spotted this dead koi fish.



It was about 4 or 5 years old, and the smaller of the bunch.

Right away, I knew one of two things had happened.


In the summer, the plants in the pond get overgrown, and need to be thinned out.

The plants add oxygen to the water in the daytime, but at night, the opposite happens.

When there are too many plants, the fish start running out of oxygen.


This has happened before, and they can be seen in the morning, gasping for air.

The pond has a waterfall, which helps aerate the water.

In this case, it was not enough.


Sure enough,  a closer inspection revealed another dead goldfish among the plants.

You can see how dense these water lilies have become.


I thinned out the plants 10 days ago, but they had quickly grown to cover most of the pond surface.


I threw out a bunch of plants.

I looked closer and realized that the two largest koi also seemed to be dead.

These were about 6 or 7 years old and were at least 15 inches long.



The big, mostly white koi struggled in the net when I tried to scoop it out. It was alive!

I ran the hose to aerate the water.


Here was the second reason the fish succumbed.

The pond has a leak, and we have to add water a few times a week.

Usually the new, chlorinated water mixes with the old water, and doesn't hurt the fish.



Yesterday, Dad left the hose running a little longer than usual, and the water overflowed.

Actually, he may have left the hose running for over an hour.


So the extra chlorine didn't help the already stressed fish.




The white koi swam off, but it ran into the wall of the pond blindly.

It wanted to lay on its back, which was awful to see.




I set up the air bubbler from an aquarium, to help aerate the water.

I probably should have used it sooner, because air bubblers are good for fish.

I don't think it is for outdoor use, however.

Also the pond's waterfall is usually enough to circulate the water.

Until I can find a better air bubbler, I will keep this in there.



I tried to help the koi fish stay upright.

I've seen fishing videos where they catch and release the fish, and I tried to do something similar.

I "swam" it around to try to get the gills to move.

Unfortunately, after half an hour, it no longer moved at all.


It was sad to see this elegant animals laying motionless.



It is hard to keep fish in an artificial environment, and disappointments happen.

Twice, raccoons ate most of the fish.

Another time the dog threw a bottle of Pine-Sol into the water... everything died, even the moss.



But, these were the biggest koi I have managed to raise so far, and it's very sad.