Fish Fetching Fail 2013

I took a half day off yesterday to go to Boulder to get my 50 new baby trout.  Had the trash can cinched down tightly.  Had my inverter, air pump, and duct tape.

It was so exciting seeing the 50 baby fish swimming around in their little bucket before we headed out.  I couldnt wait to get home and get some pictures...theyre just so cute!

After a 2+ hour drive from Boulder, at least half of which was spent in a pretty major rain storm (yay, rain!  boo, low visibility), I ran in the house to grab my cameras.  When I removed the lid, my heart sank....all but five or six of my new babies were lying at the bottom of the trash can, not moving.  :-(

I started scooping them out so I could move them to the big tank to see if any could be revived.  After several minutes, out of 50 fish, only ten survived.  Worse than the dumped-out-in-the-bed-of-a-hot-truck-in-the-scorching-sun episode of last year!  The only thing I can think of is that when I put the air tubes into the trash can for transportation, I didnt put the air rocks on them because they were kind of gummy and I was afraid they would get less air that way.  Instead, the rocks werent there to weigh them down, so I think the tubes popped up to the top of the water and blew out into the air instead of into the water.  So sad seeing all those cute little rainbows dead.  :-(

One of the babies - This is how big Fatty McFish was when I got her last year.

Zipped up bag of fish failure - I read that if you fry them up crisp enough, its easier to get the tiny bones out.
Worth a shot.  Or I guess I could boil them for fish stock - yum!  :-{

Today, on the way home from work, I decided to cheer myself up, so I stopped at PetSmart and bought three small koi fish to put in the tank with the trout.  Koi can survive cold (even freezing) water, so I figured why not add some color to my sad little tank of survivors.

As soon as I added them to the tank, the koi swam right over to the group of trout.  The trout were like, "whuuuuttt???" and swam away.  But within a few minutes, they were all hanging out together like a nice blended family.  Dont ask me how I am going to "harvest" one set of fish and keep the others.  Or how I will explain the sudden disappearance to my Koi babies.  One day at a time...

Trout and Koi Buddies

I tried to get some video of the new fish.  Sorry for the awful cinematography - trying to hold the aquarium light just right, while ducking under the grow beds and holding the camera steady.  Hopefully no one gets sea sick from watching this.