About five years ago I dug a relatively small pond on our property. Things
have been very typical and uneventful since I put it in. We have had the
green water spells, the string algae blooms, and a lot of great times just
sitting and admiring it. Since we are in zone 5 I have to replace a fair
amount of the non-hardy plants each year which, given the pleasure the pond
gives us in no big deal. But this year I decided it was time to completely
drain it and remove all of the sludge from the bottom. You know, give it a
real good cleaning and sprucing up. Rplace the lost plants, repott and
groom/thin out the others and all. But to my suprise, when the pond was
about a third empty a single four inch orange and black fish (koi/goldfish)
appeared!

The reason this is so surprising is that I never had put fish in the pond!
I am assuming that it has only been there since last summer, but I have no
clue as to how it got in there. Was there an egg or perhaps a fry mixed in
with something I planted? To me, this is absolutely incredible! With no
extra work, support or preeration I now have fish!

My only concern is that now I feel bad for the little fellow and I guess I
will put two or three more in there to keep him company. And I will have to
feed them. And I will have to worry about them overwintering. And if fish
are as addictive as other posts indicate, or even worse, half as addictive
as ponding I am really in trouble! This is great!

-- Carl