This is a happy ending, thankfully. We emptied the pond and caught the fish in
a net and the friend who offered to take a "few" couldn't resist taking all the
comets and goldfish. For the first time our pond is clean. Not clear ... we
fill it from canal water so it's always greenish, but you can see the bottom.

For those of you who've been doing this longer, this won't be news, but it
cracked me up. We wanted to get rid of anything but the Koi, in the interest
of using less chemicals and having less of a fight against the pea soup. When
we got the pond empty, I vacuumed the bottom as well as I could (it was built
entirely of roundish stones from 5" - 8".) When we filled it back, lo an
behold, fishies from 2"- 6" or so had managed to hide. We were wondering where
they all went. : )

Any way, I wanted to just let you know we didn't have to kill any, and thanks
again for the advice.

Nancy in Idaho