A while ago, I decided it was time to reduce the number of ordinary goldfish in our pond. We had many…in the early days of having the pond we added many small “feeder” fish to see if they would live, many of whom survived and grew as our skills as pond owners increased. And then, they started having babies and all of a sudden it seemed, we had about 100 fish in our pond. I captured and gave away 30 fish a year or so ago, and then noticed that the fish began procreating wildly to restore their numbers. Something had to change if I wanted to reduce the workload to maintain the pond.
We had also started buying Koi fish, a more expensive and semi-exotic cousin to the goldfish but the grows larger and is distinguished by interesting markings and long life. We decided we really wanted to keep those and maybe even add a few more koi when we return from our travels, but really needed to reduce the number of goldfish first. And so, I hired a company to come and clean out the pond. In that process, they pump all the water out of the pond into large holding ponds and then capture all the fish and put them in the ponds. I had them put all the goldfish (86!) that I wanted to give away in the one pond, and the Koi (4) plus 1 goldfish we had named Fantail into the other.
Using Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and Nextdoor, I advertised free fish to people who were starting ponds or just needed more fish. I got enough people that I felt fairly confident that I could give away all the fish in that one day. It all worked out…in the end I had a clean pond, and all the goldfish had new homes. It feels good to have less fish, which will make it easier to keep the pond clean.
The people who got the fish sent pictures and videos of the fish in their new homes. Our remaining fish seemed in good shape, and started feeding almost immediately after returning to their clean pond. Everyone seems happy.
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