An interesting day!

It all started yesterday afternoon (Sunday) when we arrived home I did my usual check of the pond only to discover that one of the three big Koi was swimming around with it's mouth sticking out. When I looked closely it I thought I saw a tail fin sliding in and out of it's mouth sort of like a snake's tongue! I waited a couple of hours and checked again to see if maybe he'd swallowed it and --- nope. So this afternoon (Monday) I went into the pond with the air temperature around 37, water temp sitting around 43 and spitting snow I went out and caught the bugger -- typical balmy Vermont Novemeber weather. Sure enough he'd swallowed a 3" comet and gotten it stuck in his throat! Removed it and hopefully he'll recover with no infections or other complications. Oh, and the little guy was still breathing!! Unfortunately I'd had to destroy his fins and tail in the process of getting him out so I had to euthanize the comet. So if you're wondering what happens to those little comets over the winter and why your Koi look rather healthy come spring - think cannibals and carnivores!

This is the follow-up shot.

Please, don't let this happen in my pond. I have enough freaky stuff happening in my life. Jessamine

Yep, that qualifies as a weird day. Nice job on the rescue.

Be it far from me to be critical, but have you ever thought about feeding your poor Koi?
Maybe then they would not be trying to snaffle your little fish?!
Just askin' LOL

Good job on the removal, I like your tool set, impressive stuff!
You don't do the odd Frontal Lobotomy in your spare time, do you Doc ? :):)
An Enquiring Mind.

I've long suspected many ponders wear our hair this way to hide the lobotomy scars. Would explain both the questionable coiffures AND eccentric behavior.

Quite the story! Congrats on the successful fishy removal.

Oconus, always happy to perform a frontal lobotomy - did one on myself just the other day! LOL! Jessamine, I didn't mean to freak anyone out but we all get to deal with 'stuff' when it comes to having water gardens/ponds. This was just my take on helping one fish out of some potentially serious trouble. But I have to tell you I wasn't terribly thrilled about having to get in there and deal with it! Hopefully it will help some other poor soul who sees a fish swimming around with something stuck in their mouth (I've heard of them getting rocks/pebbles suck as well as fish - never witnessed it though).

Of course the good side of this is that the big guy is doing fine today. And the other good side is that after being in the water, in the snow, etc.... it's a GREAT excuse to go in and sit by the fire with a hot toddy or whatever!!!

You're a good soul, DRH2, helping your little guy in the cold and snowy weather. Wow, that seems so early for snow. I have copied the post, so that if I ever have the problem, I'll know what to do. Hmmmmmm, for so long I have blamed the aliens for missing fish. I guess I will have to rethink that theory!!!!!
Pax

This message was edited Nov 9, 2004 5:58 PM

Rock City, I do have someone in mind that may benefit from DRH2'S part time hobby of brain surgery.
DRH2 did you get that special tool kit from Santa? LOL
Still enquiring.

Yep, just lucky to have the right tools at the right time; unfortunately Santa doesn't seem to carry that line of goods. Pax, it's not the aliens - unless they're into Sushi! This past spring after the Koi mated EVERYTHING was covered with fish eggs. Forty-eight hours later you'd have been hard pressed to find many at all. Everybody in the pond was into caviar - including the parents. So I'm not surprised to see the little ones disappear over time - just surprised at the size that glutton tried to stuff down it's throat.

I have never seen photos like that. I'm really glad you posted them actually. For some reason I don't think of koi as cannibals. I know they are but never quite thought about it until I saw your photo. Pretty wild.

I'm determined to keep my fish load quite low -- fewer than 25 koi in 12,000 gallons -- so was horrified to find swimming in my pool a school of fry ranging in size from your pinky to your index finger. Lord! At least eight of them. So you can't count on your big guys thinning the herd completely.

Which brings me to this question: I bought two minnow traps, caught two fry, one of which swam back out before I could get the trap out. What is the best bait to use in there? I was using bread balls, but they got wise to it and now won't go in. Need something more tempting.

I lost a koi to swallowing (or trying to) a large corydoris catfish. Spines in the fins of the cat lodged in the throat and mouth of the koi. I tried to get him out, I tried to cut the fins, I tried everything, but still lost both fish. Never keep corycats with koi!