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Fishkill most foul
Fishy day yesterday. Literally and figuratively. Went to Aquarama, the International Ornamental Fish and Accessories Exhibition (my own photos here) in the early afternoon, then returned home and found fishy murder most foul in our own outdoor fishpond. NOTHING survived. In a matter of hours, we found all our own ornamental fish (lots and lots of guppies and one cool pleco) going belly up. We had to flush away dead guppies by the score.
I think I've had freshwater fish as pets for at least a decade and a half. The only time I didn't have fish pets was in the last 3 years. But that absence doesn't erase experience gathered from grappling with a few fish diseases, learning that holiday fish food is a joke, that bettas are capable of starving themselves to death out of pickiness, how to stock tanks to have the best harmony of living things and the least filth. Losing ALL the fish in one set-up in a matter of hours is completely new to me.
We eliminated all the accidental possibilities of what could have happened, on our part, to the fish in the outdoor pond. The fish had all been healthy earlier in the day, no signs for years of any sickness - and as for the water quality/oxygen levels... aside from dust from construction work around us (that accounted for a few fish deaths a week, not a 100% fishkill), I'd say it was probably optimal. We actually do NOT rely on pumps, algae was under control, and the water plants were thriving. We even had a "control tank" - an indoor pond with the same fish, the same plants shared from the outdoor pond, that was given the same partial water changes, the same food, etc. Everything we could think of was the same. The big difference was placement. The outdoor pond was in the condo's public area.
Add all that to the fact that all the fullgrown pretty guppies were out-and-out MISSING from the outdoor pond when we were scooping out all the dead fish... and I think I'm 99% sure now it was foul play as well as theft. To be frank, I've never cared if people took away the pretty fish, since we were constantly breeding new ones - but to take lives away from all the other fish in the pond? That's so very ugly indeed. The guilty party may or may not have known we had an indoor pond too - but it appears to me that besides stealing, they wanted to kill the ones that were left. We might have had close to 80 or 90 guppies in that pond to start with. Even after putting all the failing fish in new, fresh water after seeing the first wave of deaths, at least 50-70 fish died on us yesterday. The friendly pleco too. I can only hope I do not need to see so many dead fish altogether in one place again.
To the guilty party: Seriously. You could have taken the pretty ones and left the others alone. Such damage and waste did not need to be done, not even to small beings like guppies.
I think I've had freshwater fish as pets for at least a decade and a half. The only time I didn't have fish pets was in the last 3 years. But that absence doesn't erase experience gathered from grappling with a few fish diseases, learning that holiday fish food is a joke, that bettas are capable of starving themselves to death out of pickiness, how to stock tanks to have the best harmony of living things and the least filth. Losing ALL the fish in one set-up in a matter of hours is completely new to me.
We eliminated all the accidental possibilities of what could have happened, on our part, to the fish in the outdoor pond. The fish had all been healthy earlier in the day, no signs for years of any sickness - and as for the water quality/oxygen levels... aside from dust from construction work around us (that accounted for a few fish deaths a week, not a 100% fishkill), I'd say it was probably optimal. We actually do NOT rely on pumps, algae was under control, and the water plants were thriving. We even had a "control tank" - an indoor pond with the same fish, the same plants shared from the outdoor pond, that was given the same partial water changes, the same food, etc. Everything we could think of was the same. The big difference was placement. The outdoor pond was in the condo's public area.
Add all that to the fact that all the fullgrown pretty guppies were out-and-out MISSING from the outdoor pond when we were scooping out all the dead fish... and I think I'm 99% sure now it was foul play as well as theft. To be frank, I've never cared if people took away the pretty fish, since we were constantly breeding new ones - but to take lives away from all the other fish in the pond? That's so very ugly indeed. The guilty party may or may not have known we had an indoor pond too - but it appears to me that besides stealing, they wanted to kill the ones that were left. We might have had close to 80 or 90 guppies in that pond to start with. Even after putting all the failing fish in new, fresh water after seeing the first wave of deaths, at least 50-70 fish died on us yesterday. The friendly pleco too. I can only hope I do not need to see so many dead fish altogether in one place again.
To the guilty party: Seriously. You could have taken the pretty ones and left the others alone. Such damage and waste did not need to be done, not even to small beings like guppies.
