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We have a water garden and it was loaded with goldfish of all varieties. Sarassas, shubunkins, and regular comets. They lay eggs every year and every year there are at least a couple hundred hatchlings that can be seen but by mid summer there are only around five left that are about an inch or two in length. We have really unique colors and patterns that can't be found in stores because of all the different varieties mixing for around 5 years now. Some even turn out to resort back to their natural carp color.
Anyways about a month ago a blue heron discovered them and completed decimated the population, which was about 40 fish including four generations and some at least 5 years old. I was pissed! The bird hung around all day but never came back. We assumed it was because all the fish were gone because we couldn't see any left.
About a week later some started showing up on the surface looking very lethargic. They clearly had developed ich from the insane amounts of stress. I had to take the fish out and put them in one of my big tanks. So after draining the water I discovered about 25 fish (none of the oldest ones which were just too big to escape) that had been hiding at the bottom motionless. So I put them in the tank to treat the ich which worked but not before about 10 more died. Another thing that made me mad was that this heron came right around when they were typically spawning and figured they didn't have time to reproduce.
However, I was met with a great surprise when draining the pond to see at least a hundred hatchlings, all of which also had ich. I saved as many as I could in a fish fry net in the tank but they all either had ich or were just too small to be transferred. So the baby fish died of stress or ich. But towards the end of draining I discovered three hatchlings that were larger than the rest. I was only able to catch two. I was happy because though those others died, they got to leave their mark and make one last spawn. I am happy to report I put the surviving large ones back in the pond and that the two surviving fry are still living in the tank are now about 1.5 inches.
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