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Goldy, 1998-2003
After the disaster of the pond heater in January, things
had calmed down for the poor little fishies. I put a pump in the pond, which, along with
daily bashing of the ice film, kept enough oxygen in the water, so that when the thaw came,
there were all the fish, swimming happily.
Then, I thought I was so smart and built an above ground filter. This is really cool - the
water pumps into the bottom of the filter, rises through netting, and then flows through a
tube back into the pond. I built this on a beautiful lat March Spring day.
I then went to Indiana for a long weekend with Daniel,
leaving the filter running. It immediately turns cold, and the filter freezes - BUT the pump
keeps working. Angi wakes up the next morning to the odd mechanical sound of a pump sucking
air, looks out, and sees a dozen fish in 4 inches of mostly frozen water.
So, then, she rushes out, refills the pond, and most of the fish seem to survive. BUT, the
chlorine in the tap water goes to work, and kills all but four the fish.
Then, over the course of the next few weeks, the remaining fish died one by one. The biggest of the
of the bunch, pictured at left, was nearly a foot long. I bought him at about 2 inches about
five years ago.
There's one hardy soul left, a smaller fellow about three inches long. I went out and
bought three dozen mini-comets, at 12 cents a piece, and we'll just start over.
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