A rescue? NOOOO........!

[jjohnwm]

An elderly neighbour of mine...yes, elderly-er than me...recently had a severe downturn in his health and has been forced to admit that he will no longer be capable of maintaining his pond. He has a lovely in-ground pond equipped with a DIY garbage-can filter that he and I put together ourselves a number of years ago. His pond is, like mine, heavily overgrown with numerous rooted and floating plants, necessitating at least a couple of purges each season to thin them out. It's an irregular oval shape about 50 x 30 feet, with a centre depth of maybe 5 feet. Unlike mine, it doesn't freeze solid all the way to the bottom, and numerous fish survive quite handily under 3 or 4 feet of ice each winter. Numerous others don't.

It's been stocked with...well, just about everything he can lay his hands on. It contained way too many Goldfish (many of which he got from me), along with numerous Fathead Minnows, a couple of Koi, a few assorted others that he picked up on a whim in local stores or baitshops or from other casual aquarist/pondkeepers. He and his wife are not by any means serious hobbyists; they just like a casual rural lifestyle, and enjoy sitting on the little "dock" I helped him build next to the pond.

So when his wife called and told me about his health downturn and asked me if I would consider coming over and removing/re-homing the fish, I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I also couldn't say no. When I showed up a couple days ago...they're definitely "neighbours" IMHO but they still live about 30 kilometers away...I had with me all the gear of a well-armed collecting expedition. I arrived the day after Ivan got home from the hospital, and it was pretty obvious that the "we" in this project actually meant "me".

After removing 90% of the vegetation, I made a couple of cast-net throws, and they produced lots of fish, mostly Goldies. Then it was time to make a couple of passes with a seine net I had brought, which produced lots more. I won't list all the species present, since many of them were of "questionable" legality. I had already explained to my friends that the re-homing would be done almost entirely into my freezer, with a few choice specimens going into an indoor 75-gallon tank in their rec room. These are country folk; they have livestock and are very pragmatic in terms of life and death "on the farm".

So after a few hours of pleasant labour, interspersed with a few dock-sitting spells of beer drinking, Ivan and I each have 100 or so nice big Goldfish frozen for use as fishing bait this season, and likely well into next winter (as expected). He and his wife have 3 particularly attractive Goldies in their rec-room tank (also as expected).

And I brought home a rescue fish. I had no intentions of doing so, but I also didn't expect to find a couple of Chinese High-fin Suckers (Myxocyprinus asiaticus) in the pond either. Ivan tells me his son purchased 4 of them in town only a few weeks ago and believed they would do well in the pond. Ivan performed what my wife calls a "Ukrainian acclimation", which consists of cutting open the bag and dumping the fish into the pond, then opening a beer.

We found only two (one went into Ivan's basement tank), although I'm sure that we missed a number of assorted fish during our search-and-destroy mission in the pond. I'm going back in a couple days and we plan on pumping the pond almost dry, catching whatever stragglers we missed the first time, and then re-filling the pond and returning a bunch of plants. I'm kinda hoping we don't find more of the suckers then; as interesting as I find this species, it's just too big as an adult for my accommodations. I'm not sure what I will do with the one I have, assuming that it survives.

Currently in a mature 120-gallon tank that housed my Gymno's during the winter; they're outside now so this will be a quarantine for the Sucker. I dumped in a fair quantity of "pond mulm", i.e. fish crap, which I brought home with the fish, and offered it frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms. Its tummy profile and its sudden activity when food is introduced make me think it's eating, but I haven't actually observed this. It looks okay, aside from a bit of cloudiness in the tail fin; I added some salt hoping it may help with that. Fingers crossed.

It just occurred to me now: I will throw a half-dozen or so berried Cherry Shrimp into this tank. This may provide a source of full-time food for the Sucker; worst-case scenario, the shrimp will start up another colony.

 

[danotaylor]

That's a great story jjohnwm ! Glad you were able to help out your "neighbor" mate. "Ukranian acclimation"! Hilarious...I guess the beers ease the pain if the acclimation fails, as part of the coping mechanism for the life & death mentality on the farm LOL Happy dayz!

 

[esoxlucius]

In blighty we don't refer to folks who live 30km away as neighbours....we call them foreigners!!

The only people I refer to as neighbours in our vicinity live next door to me! Lol.

 

[jjohnwm]

In blighty we don't refer to folks who live 30km away as neighbours....we call them foreigners!!

The only people I refer to as neighbours in our vicinity live next door to me! Lol.

Here in the colonies, we have a different perspective...

 

[tlindsey]

An elderly neighbour of mine...yes, elderly-er than me...recently had a severe downturn in his health and has been forced to admit that he will no longer be capable of maintaining his pond. He has a lovely in-ground pond equipped with a DIY garbage-can filter that he and I put together ourselves a number of years ago. His pond is, like mine, heavily overgrown with numerous rooted and floating plants, necessitating at least a couple of purges each season to thin them out. It's an irregular oval shape about 50 x 30 feet, with a centre depth of maybe 5 feet. Unlike mine, it doesn't freeze solid all the way to the bottom, and numerous fish survive quite handily under 3 or 4 feet of ice each winter. Numerous others don't.

It's been stocked with...well, just about everything he can lay his hands on. It contained way too many Goldfish (many of which he got from me), along with numerous Fathead Minnows, a couple of Koi, a few assorted others that he picked up on a whim in local stores or baitshops or from other casual aquarist/pondkeepers. He and his wife are not by any means serious hobbyists; they just like a casual rural lifestyle, and enjoy sitting on the little "dock" I helped him build next to the pond.

So when his wife called and told me about his health downturn and asked me if I would consider coming over and removing/re-homing the fish, I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I also couldn't say no. When I showed up a couple days ago...they're definitely "neighbours" IMHO but they still live about 30 kilometers away...I had with me all the gear of a well-armed collecting expedition. I arrived the day after Ivan got home from the hospital, and it was pretty obvious that the "we" in this project actually meant "me".

After removing 90% of the vegetation, I made a couple of cast-net throws, and they produced lots of fish, mostly Goldies. Then it was time to make a couple of passes with a seine net I had brought, which produced lots more. I won't list all the species present, since many of them were of "questionable" legality. I had already explained to my friends that the re-homing would be done almost entirely into my freezer, with a few choice specimens going into an indoor 75-gallon tank in their rec room. These are country folk; they have livestock and are very pragmatic in terms of life and death "on the farm".

So after a few hours of pleasant labour, interspersed with a few dock-sitting spells of beer drinking, Ivan and I each have 100 or so nice big Goldfish frozen for use as fishing bait this season, and likely well into next winter (as expected). He and his wife have 3 particularly attractive Goldies in their rec-room tank (also as expected).

And I brought home a rescue fish. I had no intentions of doing so, but I also didn't expect to find a couple of Chinese High-fin Suckers (Myxocyprinus asiaticus) in the pond either. Ivan tells me his son purchased 4 of them in town only a few weeks ago and believed they would do well in the pond. Ivan performed what my wife calls a "Ukrainian acclimation", which consists of cutting open the bag and dumping the fish into the pond, then opening a beer.

We found only two (one went into Ivan's basement tank), although I'm sure that we missed a number of assorted fish during our search-and-destroy mission in the pond. I'm going back in a couple days and we plan on pumping the pond almost dry, catching whatever stragglers we missed the first time, and then re-filling the pond and returning a bunch of plants. I'm kinda hoping we don't find more of the suckers then; as interesting as I find this species, it's just too big as an adult for my accommodations. I'm not sure what I will do with the one I have, assuming that it survives.

Currently in a mature 120-gallon tank that housed my Gymno's during the winter; they're outside now so this will be a quarantine for the Sucker. I dumped in a fair quantity of "pond mulm", i.e. fish crap, which I brought home with the fish, and offered it frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms. Its tummy profile and its sudden activity when food is introduced make me think it's eating, but I haven't actually observed this. It looks okay, aside from a bit of cloudiness in the tail fin; I added some salt hoping it may help with that. Fingers crossed.
View attachment 1562728View attachment 1562729
It just occurred to me now: I will throw a half-dozen or so berried Cherry Shrimp into this tank. This may provide a source of full-time food for the Sucker; worst-case scenario, the shrimp will start up another colony.

I read the Chinese Hi Fin Sucker
are great algae eaters . I believe kendragon has one.

 

[jjohnwm]

I read all the stuff I could find here on MFK, including threads by kendragon and TBTB outlining their experiences with this species as well as a few outside sources. I am getting the sense that this is one of those species that will live and grow well if it is received in good health and can be gotten over the hump of its first few weeks in a tank.

I'm not sure if that's the case with the two fish we have here. My buddy tells me that his is very lethargic and despondent; he has not seen it eat since we brought it indoors, but it's in a 4-foot tank with three largish goldfish, almost no decor, bright lighting...in other words, just about the worst environment for anything that might be considered sensitive or shy. Mine is alone except for snails, shrimp and three small female green swordtails; some large driftwood, plenty of algae, some fragments of Hornwort and Guppy Grass. Water temperature is around 65F, likely will not go much higher than that; lighting is fairly subdued. I feed several times daily, hoping to start him eating, and the tankmates are there to hopefully spur him on to do so. The fish looks no worse than it did a couple days ago, but also no better.

It's not exactly emaciated, but certainly not plump. Still have yet to see it eat anything, but it looks as though it must be getting some nourishment; it's very shy and doesn't move much until food is introduced. Then it becomes more active but still seems to ignore the food items. I've switched over to baby brine shrimp rather than adult, thinking that perhaps the adults are too large for it. It's not much more than 2 inches long.

I wasn't "in the market" for one of these, but if I had been and came across this one in a shop...I very much doubt I would have purchased it.

I'm awaiting that warm fuzzy feeling that apparently overwhelms some folks who "rescue" fish from substandard conditions; not experiencing it yet, mainly because I am not at all certain that I've rescued it at all. It seems to me that I am observing the initial stages of a slow, gradual wasting-away. I hope I'm wrong.

Going back tomorrow to finish de-fishing the pond; curious as to whether or not the other two specimens will be found alive.

 

[tlindsey]

2 inches

Wow never seen one that small. I hope the Chinese Hi Fin does well for you.

 

[FINWIN]

Sounds like a pond adventure!

 

[Americancichlidsaredabest]

I read all the stuff I could find here on MFK, including threads by kendragon and TBTB outlining their experiences with this species as well as a few outside sources. I am getting the sense that this is one of those species that will live and grow well if it is received in good health and can be gotten over the hump of its first few weeks in a tank.

I'm not sure if that's the case with the two fish we have here. My buddy tells me that his is very lethargic and despondent; he has not seen it eat since we brought it indoors, but it's in a 4-foot tank with three largish goldfish, almost no decor, bright lighting...in other words, just about the worst environment for anything that might be considered sensitive or shy. Mine is alone except for snails, shrimp and three small female green swordtails; some large driftwood, plenty of algae, some fragments of Hornwort and Guppy Grass. Water temperature is around 65F, likely will not go much higher than that; lighting is fairly subdued. I feed several times daily, hoping to start him eating, and the tankmates are there to hopefully spur him on to do so. The fish looks no worse than it did a couple days ago, but also no better.

It's not exactly emaciated, but certainly not plump. Still have yet to see it eat anything, but it looks as though it must be getting some nourishment; it's very shy and doesn't move much until food is introduced. Then it becomes more active but still seems to ignore the food items. I've switched over to baby brine shrimp rather than adult, thinking that perhaps the adults are too large for it. It's not much more than 2 inches long.

I wasn't "in the market" for one of these, but if I had been and came across this one in a shop...I very much doubt I would have purchased it.

I'm awaiting that warm fuzzy feeling that apparently overwhelms some folks who "rescue" fish from substandard conditions; not experiencing it yet, mainly because I am not at all certain that I've rescued it at all. It seems to me that I am observing the initial stages of a slow, gradual wasting-away. I hope I'm wrong.

Going back tomorrow to finish de-fishing the pond; curious as to whether or not the other two specimens will be found alive.

R those the ones that can get several feet long? Or am I thinking of smth else?
Good on you for rescuing even if u don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling. I’ve never gotten that feeling and I’ve taken a few fish in haha. Maybe I’m js a cold hearted individual.

 

[jjohnwm]

Yeah, these are the same big guys you're thinking of. I may be just another cold-hearted brutalist like yourself , but I won't buy a fish when I know darn well that it will outgrow any housing I can provide. In order to qualify as a "rescue", there are two conditions that must be met. First off: the fish must be going to a better home than that from which it came. And second: the fish must survive the experience! I'm not sure of that one yet.

It was an adventure, and I went back for more fun yesterday. We got the pond drained down to the point where it consisted of 3 big puddles, only a couple inches deep. Pulled out about another hundred goldfish, plus a bunch of assorted others, including a couple of larger predators that might not have been eating 5inch or 6inch goldies but were definitely capable of scarfing down smaller fish like the Chinese Hi-Fins. We didn't find anymore of those, so it seems that the other two Hi-Fins didn't make it. Everything we found today went into the freezers. Going catfishing on Friday and I know what I'll be using for bait.

We re-filled the pond, replaced a bunch of plants, and called it a day. For the time being, Ivan won't be keeping fish at all in the pond, but we get all kinds of interesting frogs and aquatic insects and other assorted invertebrates that find their own way into our ponds and which require no attention from us to live happily. His pond will require a couple of plant thinnings this summer, which I can do in maybe an hour with very little effort.

The Hi-Fin I brought home is still alive, doesn't look much different, neither better nor worse; the one in Ivan's tank seems the same as well. Still haven't actually seen them eat. I definitely overfeed the tank hoping to keep food available pretty much throughout the day. I siphon 5 gallons off the bottom each day, and have removed most of the mulm I introduced as the fish seems not to utilize it at all. I will be doing one of my normal fin-level water changes on Saturday.

The Hi-Fin spends most of its time huddled close to the surface of a large piece of driftwood, not hidden and never in the same spot, and becomes active and cruises the tank whenever I introduce a bit of food. The scent obviously intrigues it, but again, I've never witnessed actual eating. It's still shy; I add food and then sit across the room and watch it closely with binoculars, which my wife finds both amusing and concerning.