Ahhhh.....I am so sorry for your loss. I have a 1 1/2 yr. old friendly
goldfish i wouldn't take money for, so i understand. Time will heal
you. And like you wanted, maybe you can learn and prevent it from
happening again. Last year i had thousands of tadpoles that i killed
trying to save. It took months to stop feeling guilty. This year i am
leaving well enough alone and will watch for stressed fish, then i'll
bring them in or something.





On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 06:38:23 -0500, "SueAndHerZoo"
wrote:

Hi. If you recall I wrote about a week ago with my koi hiding and
dying.
Some of you suggested nitrite poisoning, which made sense, and when I
tested
the water, the nitrites were high. I have been doing water changes,
adding
salt, firing up the pump and filter, added 2 more airstones, etc. and
the
water tests fine now. Unfortunately, I lost 4 of my very large,
"been with
me from the start" koi. I still break down and cry a lot,
especially when
I'm out working on the pond, and most people think I'm nuts, but I
knew
people here could relate - they were my "babies", I raised them from
only a
couple of inches long, they ate out of my hand, followed me around
the pond,
etc. Of course a part of it is the guilt - I feel as if I killed
them or
let them down.

But anyway, sorry for the venting, here are my real questions: why
is it I
still have quite a few small fish and koi fry that survived, and only
the
big ones didn't make it? I thought it would be the other way around
with
nitrite poisoning. And secondly, I still need to know WHY I had a
nitrite
problem this winter - it's never happened before. It would be
easier to
deal with this and prevent it from ever happening again if I knew
WHAT I was
dealing with. Thanks for letting me vent - nice to know there's a
place
where I can cry over fish and not feel like a fool.
Sue