Changing of the guard

Well, me and my big mouth ... there I was blogging recently, saying our lovely little goldfish, Paul, was coming up to his sixth birthday. I'm very sorry to tell you that Paul didn't make it that far. He passed away soon after that, and since then we've been galvanised into giving our water garden a makeover, and bringing a new family of goldfish into our garden. (We've buried Paul in the garden, with a little metal plant marker with his name on it serving as his gravestone. RIP Paul.)

We've expanded our water garden so it comprises two large ceramic pots filled with potted Louisiana iris, and each pot requires some resident goldfish to munch on the mosquito larvae that will inevitably be laid there. So, it's two goldfish per pot ...

Here they are, still in the bags I brought them home in from the aquarium shop. In the bag on the right are Tony and Carmela, and in the bag on the left, AJ and Meadow. Late night TV crime show fans might recognise the names, but if not, doesn't matter. It'll be hard to tell them apart, but Tony is the one with the black markings. The others are innocent.

If you're thinking of goldfish for outdoor ponds, the cheap and
common "Comets" are said to be one of the best choices. At
Marrickville Aquarium these four cost $14. They're tough,
they eat mozzie larvae, they can cope with murky-ish water,
and they aren't rowdy.

Paul came to us from the Marrickville Aquarium shop too,
so maybe Meadow and AJ are his distant cousins?

The basics of adding goldfish to an outdoor pond are straightforward.

1. I filled both pots up with water on Wednesday this week, and so the water itself has had a few days of sunshine (and a bit of rain) to evaporate off chemical residues of chlorine and other stuff that is added to a city's drinking water. Apparently adding little goldfish straight into tapwater will kill some of them. So, "age" your water for a day or two.
2. Leave your new goldfish in their bag of water, and sit it in the pond for at least half an hour, or more, so the temperature of their water slowly becomes the same as the temperature of the pond's water. Then gently release them into the water. That's it.

Here's both ponds with their bags of goldfish. Tony and Carmela
are in the bigger (and new) pot on the left, and Ajay and Meadow
are in the original, smaller pot on the right. 

Here's a slightly fuzzy shot of Tony and Carmela moments after
they were released from the bag. They stayed down the bottom
of the pond for a few minutes, and now they are swimming
around, exploring their strange new world.

Last but not least, I've installed an ACME cat frustrator for
our local fish-obsessed pussy cat, the eternally unsuccessful
Wile. E. Coyote, who hunts by night and never catches a thing.

Just as in my previous posting, where I talked about the second generation of curry leaf trees starting its career here, now I'm introducing the second generation of our mozzie munching goldfish. The times they are a' changing...

I hope they enjoy it here, and I certainly hope that they are here for at least six more years, hopefully. Come to think of it, I guess I could say the same for me!