About the bloody fish?!

[TammyswansonTwo]

We bought our first house a couple of months ago. The garden has a pond in it, which I looked at and didn't see any fish, didn't think any more of it.

When we moved in, the owners left no information about anything (plus no keys for windows or internal doors etc, which pissed me off), took us a month to find the water mains tap which is hidden in the back of a random kitchen cupboard behind a board!). However, what they did leave was an almost empty bag of fish food in a kitchen cupboard. Hmm. Went out to the pond and added a bit of food thinking it was daft and four giant fish appeared - two massive goldfish and two koi. I looked up how the hell you look after fish, fed them as required but one died after a few weeks which really upset me.

Now the pump is clogged and I have literally no idea how to clean it out - I think it's attached to the bottom of the pond which is built into the decking, the cables must run underneath the decking, I can't even find the power for the bloody thing to turn it off.

AIBU to think you don't leave live animals for someone else to look after without at least telling them they exist, and without at least basic information on the set up to enable them to take care of them? I'm really panicking that these poor fish are going to die, and can't find anyone to take them as apparently combining fish from different ponds is dangerous.

Shit.

Put them up on freegle? Contact a pet shop?

Yes, what if you decided to drain the pond without realising that they were there (after you threw out the bag thinking they left it behind accidentally)?

I had the same thing......we move in in October, thought it was empty and in May about 200 fish appeared! I’m sure you could combine them and I’d love Koi now. We have goldfish and shibunkins (koi/goldfish cross)

Could you google and try to find a local organisation for goldfish keepers and maybe someone would be kind enough to come and take a look. Otherwise get a professional out? Is there any way to contact the previous owners, have they moved far?

Agree that it was shitty of them to not even tell you they were leaving the fish.

AIBU to think you don't leave live animals for someone else to look after without at least telling them they exist, and without at least basic information on the set up to enable them to take care of them?

I think you might be the least unreasonable person ever to post on AIBU!!

Seriously though, what a fucking shitty thing to do.
Plus am a bit baffled, because all the koi keepers I know (admittedly not many!) only do it because they really love the things.

Poor things.

Please, please don't put them out for free on Gumtree/Freegle/Whatever. All sorts of randoms will think "Oooh I fancy one of those" without any research/skill/ability to properly care for it.

Now the pump is clogged and I have literally no idea how to clean it out - I think it's attached to the bottom of the pond which is built into the decking, the cables must run underneath the decking, I can't even find the power for the bloody thing to turn it off.

Def find a breeder/specialist to speak to immediately. (sorry to shout!) If it's possible a local one, if not there are some expert's/enthusiasts who'd travel a way/advise.

Without the pump the oxygen supply will eventually dwindle.

someone will have a similar set up and know what to do.

I know they're "only" fish, but that's so fucking sad, that someone could walk off and just leave them there, knowing they were likely to die a horrible death unless they were miraculously discovered.

Thanks everyone - I don't have a new address for them (wish I did as they only redirected their mail for a month and getting stuff for them every day now 🙄) .

We are planning to have the pond removed since we have 1 year twins - we were planning to just drain it but obviously not an option now.

My husband says I should stop worrying about it since I have enough on my plate but I can't just let them die, it's awful. There must be a way to access the pump without ripping up the decking (surely). But the easiest thing would be to find someone to rehome them. I'm not even sure there are organisations that will rehome fish?! I'll have a look online and see what I can find out. I just really don't have a clue what I'm doing, if they'd at least given us info on how to care for them / how the equipment works I wouldn't mind.

Ugh, just been out for a better look and theres algae there now which wasn't there before. I'm guessing the pump hasn't been working for a little while but I haven't noticed (one of my boys has a serious illness and we've had a rough couple of weeks with lots of hospital trips and my stress levels have been through the roof - I've been out and added supplementary food but honestly haven't looked too closely and when the pump is working it's quite subtle). I feel so responsible and so guilty - I've never had a pond before and had no idea this would be an issue, in hindsight I should have thought to check it. God I feel awful 😢

Stop fretting. Someone will know how to move the remaining fish. (I wonder whether they had a couple of dozen in there, and thought they'd taken the lot, but missed these?)

Try these guys:
forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/

In no universe are YBU.

I would end up bonding with the damn thing and become pond obsessed.

Put an ad out there, free of course.

Then fill the pond in!

I don't think so - it's not a very big pond but the blighters are very good at hiding!

Thanks for the link, I'll be post and try to get some info.

Are you near Cheshire?
We have three natural stream fed ponds, one with trout, one with Koi and top pond has DD's now enormous goldfish.

In the same situation we have our foster fish to the local shooting school.
When we released them into the lake I did have a tear in my eye but every time we go there now I give them an internal high five as I walk by

gave

Ring around local vets, pets at home, google koi carp plus your town. See what comes up. Pond fish need specific cleaning and maintenance which is time consuming and sometimes costly to do. Your best bet is to get someone responsible to take them away, and quickly, likely you will find genuine fish people through better channels such as vets and koi sellers than local personal ads. If you can’t do that it the fish look like they are suffering 🙁 then the kindest thing would be to euthanise them rather than leaving them to suffer. If one has already died they might well be ill/diseased. Some vets can do this but for a charge, there’s another method I read on here which you can do at home with a particular oil. Ask the fish board here on Mn. It’s not a nice thing to consider but neither is fish slowly dying and suffering. Just think you should be aware of all alternatives if you run out of time to sort this out before they really start suffering. Good luck.

Exactly the same thing happened to us - but they didn’t even leave the food. I looked in the butt ugly pond and was sure it was empty. 10 days later I spied 5 big fish! I was livid, they also didn’t redirect their post properly or pick up the dog poo from the garden
I asked around my friends and a friends Fish expert neighbour ended up taking them to his pond, could you ask about for similar? It is a shitty thing to do.

Don't feel responsible, and don't feel guilty.

The people who should be fucking feeling bad are the absolute arseholes who left vulnerable animals to basically slowly starve/suffocate.

Don't panic either.
Just check the forum linked above (I have no personal experience of fish btw, just saying what I would do!), or search koi breeders/experts in your area, and get in touch asap.

What I do have experience of is reptile/snake/spider/amphibian/ odd thing keepers who are "just" amateurs but really know everything and wouldn't think twice before helping someone out in your kind of situation.

I hope they just left them accidentally, but experience (inc. the memorable occasion my friend rescued a bloody massive scorpian from someones house because the previous tenants had just left it there!) tells me it was too much hassle for them to move it/they saw it as a convenient time to dump the poor fish.

Thanks all - at the moment they look absolutely fine, very nippy and darting around quite happily, but honestly I couldn't tell you what a sick fish looks like! It's been three months since we moved in, the first fish died after a couple of weeks but the others have seemed fine since. I'll do some searching online tonight when the boys are in bed.

I do have a friend who has a pond and fish and has just said she will take them but I'm now worried about them having some kind of disease and killing all her fish!

Sadly we aren't near Cheshire as that sounds lovely.

I just don't get it - you wouldn't leave a cat or a dog would you? The house is beautiful (one was an architect, one an interior designer) but I suspect the fish and pond were there for effect rather than anything else. Surely they and their kids didn't see them as pets as you just wouldn't leave pets behind... right?

I can't even be sure it is a koi - looks like one to my very untrained eye, the others definitely just look like big goldfish.

It's sad really because if they'd just told us and I'd been able to meet up with them and go over how everything works I'd have happily taken it on, but with baby twins, two cats health issues, a job and the rest, it's just too overwhelming.

My sister 'inherited' 4 large koi when she moved house, luckily she and her DH were happy to have them. However, the fish got stolen during a weekend away, and it turns out that they are quite valuable! Call the RSPCA or local pet shop. I'm sure someone will have answers or help for you.

Have us you worked out where the switch is for the pump? Turn it off fill a bucket with pond - not tAp! Water and take all the pump bits apart and swish them around in the bucket. They are usually pretty fool proof? Whereabouts are you?

Not yet - it's dark now the boys are in bed so will have to have a proper look in the morning. I see a couple of electrical possibilities- one is an outdoor power points box which does have a cable coming in the bottom but the only switches I see are for the power points that are there. There's also a grey sealed box on the side of the raised decking but it's screwed closed and the screws are rusted. Will check the fuse box / consumer unit thingie and see if there's a separate switch for it on there.

My friend says she's happy to take them but can't come til next week so although they seem okay right now I really want to try and get it working until then.

Thing is I can't really see what's going on with the pump - I can just see the top of the pipe that the air comes from so I'm worried about trying to lift it in case it disconnects from the hose or whatever is there and then I won't be able to reconnect it if I can't see it. Basically I'm completely clueless (embarrassing). I really should have sorted this out when we first moved in.

Happened to us too. Spotted one goldfish, then over the next couple of days realised there were four fish. They’d been left for months

They seem quite happy now as they’re being fed regularly.

And us! The previous people thought they had taken them but when We drained the pond six months later there were four Large goldfish remaining. they must have lived off bugs or hibernated. I bought a large tank and they lived out their days there, i woukd have loved to keep the pond but at the time I had a two and hour year old.

Thank you for trying to help them out. We have two koi and about 10 large goldfish in our pond and they are very friendly. The koi will eat out of my hand! People say oh they are 'just' fish, but they all have their personalities and are very social.

I understand about the twins but I'll tell you ours are the best pets ever. I clean the pump once a week, and feed in the summer and they survive during the winter under the ice. If you go on vacation they can go a week without food, they make no noise, but are fun to have around. Cost and work is very minimal. But again thanks for trying to help them out.