Koi by nature

Two Saturdays ago, I won a drawing in hopes of winning a brand new ukulele. Instead, I won Koi. Two koi's. I got to pick out the koi's so the first one was a beautiful golden "Kohaku" koi. The second was a white "Tancho" koi with a red dot on his head.

I was nervous about bringing the fishes home without my husband knowing. But my brother, Andrew recently gave us a tank so we were were already talking about it. I was happy when my husband saw the fish and started talking to them, trying to make their life in the bag more comfortable as I prepared their new tank.

I read that the tank needs to sit for 24 hours before letting fish in. It also said that transporting fish means they were not given any food in 48 hours prior to me picking them up. So we let them in their new home and gave them dinner.

The next day, they started to come up to the surface. At first we thought it was cute and started taking pictures and videos. But we didn't realize that they were actually suffocating. Finally, Tancho sank to the bottom laying flat on his side. He was a goner.

Come to find out, the pitcher I used the night before was Gary's salt water cleanse. It had 2 Tbsp of salt in it! I called Andrew right away. He said to get him out of the water and change the water.

Amazingly, Tancho who looked as good as dead, didn't give up. He flapped one fin to kick himself upright. At first he would bounce back down but after a few tries he got up and started swimming again.

Did you know I even considered not going to the meeting. Well fortunately it didn't come to that. We made it on time. A few days later we realized how much we hate Kois. They are not the beginners fish thats for sure! Not even three days had past and the tank was dirty. The filter was brown and gooey, slimey and smelly. We upgraded the tank double the size. After two weeks I have been cleaning the water every two days, sometimes everyday up to 80%. I got them bubbles and they love the bubble baths. They also like the waterfall from the filter but not as much as they love when we pour water into the tank. They like to get right under it. We giggle everytime they do this. Today, they're in the small tank since it is clean. But it gets dirty so fast. I spoon their feces from the gravel every hour or so once they start dropping. It seems like when they start dropping, they don't stop until they sleep. Then in the morning there is a no-action period until hours after they eat. then the dropping start coming and here I go again back and forth from the tank to the toilet. Don't get koi!!! Our plan is to find a good home and start all over with some small fishes. We asked our friends with tanks if they want our koi and we asked people who have koi if they want our koi and they all say no without any thought or hesitation. lol.