Our littlest, Rukia, that never grew much, that we tried specially hard to feed and help into her first winter. It was my fault, my inexperience. I saw her up swimming that one cold morning, and looking up the problem, found that it was a symptom of hypothermia: inability to keep her core temperature. She was only about 4″ long, and not our fattest, either. Makes me sad. I wondered then if I should pull her indoors, but I hesitated to go look up the problem, and then by the time I knew what to do, she had gone below to the rest of them, and died there. So sad. I’ll know in future and set up a rescue: I’d have had to get her a bucket of pond water and let it warm slowly to house temperature. But I didn’t. Bummer. We have one other fairly small one, and this confounded erratic weather just hasn’t helped the pond. But if I see this behavior in any other, that fish is coming inside.
Sadly, we lost one of our koi.
by CJ | Oct 31, 2009 | Journal | 3 comments
3 Comments
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I’m so very sorry. It’s so hard when it’s a critter and you just don’t know what they need [cats and dogs are hard enough!], even though you try your best. Hope the rest keep doing good.
A sad time for Koi fish indeed, I came home just last night to find my beloved Koi fish had died. I had him for about 5 years so I’m quite sad for my poor Merlin.
So sorry to hear. This is our first winter, and the weather hasn’t cooperated: we’re now getting down to the reliable 40’s, average between day and night…but it’s been bouncing all over.
It’s amazing how these guys grow on you. Ours all have names, and distinct personalities, and were eating out of our fingers before the cold sent them toward hibernation. We’re going to get another black-and-white, I think, come spring, along with the black-and-red that we wanted. Poor little fish.