Wednesday 6 June 2012

I have four new goldfish!

What do you do when you stop by a ditch and spot hundreds of goldfish?
Spewing frog and leopard frog!
Can you spot it?
You pick up four and put them in your water bottle. Because you know that they are going to drain the ditch. And they will all die.
This is what a young environmentalist did. Unfortunately, they have grown pretty big, even though they tend to grow to the size of their container. They are bigger than Shirley 2 and Calico.

Bigger than the guidelines of one gallon per inch of fish.

Shirley 2 was the first to pop to the surface.
She is familiar with floating food!
Then the whole school followed!
Heather decided it was time for a new home. Jenn Jilks has a goldfish pond, and offered to take them. Jenn Jilks now has 5 goldfish, and 1 Shubutkin. Come winter, we'll see what happens, but there you go.

We now have a happy crowd. A school, indeed. What more could a retired teacher ask for? Students who don't talk back, or need to be cajoled into handing in hot dog money, assignments, doing homework. No backtalk.
Happy fishies who want food, but don't beg.

 Did I mention talking back?!
No principal to yell at me in the hallway.
No parents complaining that I haven't decorated my classroom bulletin boards, or gave their kid low marks. (It was a 7-page letter to the principal citing my faults!)
But I digress!

Now, they're tight!
Anyway, with the normal algae in the pond, it's been hard to find the fish. They are clever, and know that they need to stay at the bottom. 

The theory is that they feed themselves from algae and insects in the pond.
I am dubious, besides, these are new fish in the pond.

I've been feeding them 'Calico' food. He is a Shubutkin, and he likes the kind that sinks to the bottom. Silly me. We needed Shirley food, the kind that floats on the top of the water.

I did this and it only took 15 minutes of patience for them to figure it out. Shirley 2 did it first. I kept on waiting and taking photos.

Shirley 2 was the brave one. Then Calico popped up and then the other four followed.
All are happy and fed.

4 comments:

Kay L. Davies said...

Awful about the fish being ditched, Jenn. I would have thought you'd rescue more than four, but of course you have to consider the size of your pond.
I enlarged the picture and found the frog. Cute.
K

Linda said...

You are so kind to take in the stray fishies...hope they make it and don't start getting mouthy like students do!

Red said...

I'm sure these will give you much more viewing pleasure this summer.

Judy said...

They can learn a few things - coming up for food is one of them...