Yesterday, the Man dug a big hole and sunk the pond liner in it. He filled it up with water to see whether it was level. And then we stared at it, and wondered what to do with it. It wold need a pump to keep mosquito larvae out of it. Or we could go a more natural route. At the risk of inviting every raccoon in the neighborhood to come over, looking for a snack, I immediately ran down the alternate route.
I got a scoop of feeder goldfish. It turned out to be four orange ones and two brown ones, the largest of which was about two inches long. The food and water conditioner ended up costing sixteen times as much as the fish themselves. But my favorite fish I ever had was from a scoop of feeder fish, a silver gourami we named "RTF" (for "random tropical fish"). He lived for years, well worth the twenty cent investment at the time. I'd like to be able to keep these little guys that long. They have the space to grow, assuming that the water is deep enough not to freeze all the way.
The bag of fish had to float a little while for the water temperatures to align. It was almost impossible to wait long enough. I reasoned that the sun on the bag would heat up the pet store water faster than the pond would cool it down, so after about 25 minutes, I turned the new crew loose in the pond. The cats were very interested in what I was doing, but only because I was outside, doing stuff. They sort of looked at the fish, too, but mostly it was a chance to be in the way of mommy in the garden. The black girls spent a little time threatening Hops through the fence, and the whitebelly boys helped me set rocks around the edge of the pond. Or rather, they got in the way a lot while I temped a handful of rocks in place. There's a big slab of flagstone at one end to provide a little extra shade for the little fishies. By the time I got tired and went inside, all six were hiding in the dark shadows. I hope they acclimate well and survive. I'll check on them in the morning. And maybe tomorrow I'll go get some lily pads to add extra sun protection, and maybe allow the bees to stop by for a drink too.
We lived in Vandenberg, California for about eight months in 2001. We tried to make a water feature at our little base house with a stack of rocks in a plastic-lined half oak barrel. We put in a small pond pump to keep the water flowing over the top of the rocks, and put a scoop of goldfish in it. It only took a few days for us to notice the number of fish was decreasing. We started keeping an eye on the back patio at night, and sure enough, a chubby little raccoon wandered up and went fishin'. I tried to be mad, but she was so cute, I ended up sneaking cat food to her once all the fish were gone.
That said, I'd prefer the raccoons stay on the trash can side of the fence. These fish are members of the family now. Or they will be once I find out whether they do okay in the pond in my yard. Just watching them today made me feel calmer.
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