look what's on my kitchen table

[Jonna]

I saw one of my Angels laying in the string algae that seems to have taken over my pond.  I caught him in the net and he is now living on the kitchen table in a really small aquarium with a filter and air pump.  So far he seems ok, he has only eaten one or two pellets and that was last night.  I can't see any wounds on him or anything that looks like illness.  I wonder if he got some of the string algae stuck around him or something?  Anyway, I hope he makes it.  I put him in about half pond water and half RO water with some salt.  I cleaned his tank and added about a third of RO water today and he didn't look good, he was up under the filter kind of stuck there.  So, I put in more salt & RO and he is swimming now.  He has a mate I think out there, I counted all the Angels and there was one that was alone.  This is one of the larger ones, he's between 4" and 5" high.  If he seems OK tomorrow I'll start adding more pond water to the aquarium and hopefully get him back in the pond the next day.

[Julles]

Glad you noticed him before he went too far downhill.  You think he got caught in string algae?  That's odd - they ought to be able to avoid that.  Perhaps he was weakened already?

[Esther]

Hope this is temporary.

[tranquility]

I bet he is fine...just got caught up in the string algae....I've seen some of my little guys do that and I have to get them out....string algae can get really bad in the gh tanks sometimes....
Lawanna

[Jonna]

I still can't see any injuries.  He ate a little again today and I will add more pond water (thus less salt) and see how he does. 

[miguynmkoi]

He looks so cool!  Hope he gets better and joins his mate soon.

[Jonna]

I changed about 50% of the water with pond water and so far he is still swimming around.  I've noticed that the area around his gills/side fins is not as red as it was.  I figured that was normal since both of them were the same.  I wonder if he was having trouble breathing and raising the salt level helped him?  I'll watch him a few more hours and then put him back in the pond if he seems ok.  His black stripes fade and come back, I never noticed that before.  I was standing there staring at him in his little glass cube and they faded almost to invisible.  I walked away and they came back pretty black.  I can see how much fun it would be to have them in an aquarium where you can really watch them. 

[Rad Michelle]

I pulled my koi out of massive alge and after a few days they were doin great. My smallest one had swallowed alge and it was comin out of his gills poor guy but he held still enough for me to take it out your little dude should b fine w time

[Jonna]

awww, how wonderful that he let you help him.  My guy seems to be fine in mostly pond water now and he ate a couple pellets tonight and pooped.  I'm going to put him back in the pond tomorrow if he's still good. 

[OldMarine]

That must be really cool to have tropical fish in an outside pond without being concerned about the temperatures dropping to much.

[Kat]

Glad he is doing better.  The fading stripes may be an indication of stress as you approach.

[Jonna]

Well, he's back home in the pond.  I did a 50% water change last night using pond water and again this morning to make sure the salt was gone and he was doing OK.  He ate a couple more pellets, pooped again and this afternoon I put him back in the pond.  The one I think is his/her mate came right up and stayed by him.  One of the other ones was not so friendly, I think that pair may have eggs somewhere.  I didn't want to keep him out for too long because the only aquarium I have is so small he could barely turn around in it.  It was cool to see him up so close though, I'd love having an aquarium someday.   Here's some pics, the first is this afternoon before I put him back in the pond.  His gill fin area has no more red on it, so it could have been the problem. 



This is right after I put him back, I was trying to follow him but... it's hard.  I think he is the one in the middle and his mate is the one on the left.  The gold one is part of a pair that I believe have eggs somewhere.



and here's a pic of the pond today.  I think they are done with the concrete work so tomorrow I'm going to get in there and try and clean up some of the algae and move one of the papyrus back towards the wall so the lilies get more sun. 



It is really cool to have tropical fish outside in a pond.  I did worry a bit about the cold though, it was a record cold winter which meant that it actually got down into the low 60's / high 50's a couple of nights!  brrrrrr....   The water temp got as low as 70F but the fish did OK I think because it is a gradual change plus the water temps never get above 78 or 80 even in the summer because of the limestone that the pond is carved out of. 

[miguynmkoi]

The photo of the angels in the pond is cool.  Your pond looks great!  You have so many lilies blooming!