The best surprise
If your garden doesn't surprise you at least a few times a year, I'd say that there's something wrong with it. One of my biggest sources of surprise -- both good and bad -- has been the pond. Almost six years old and different every year.
This year (after its makeover) it still seems to be settling in, with greener water than I'd like, but lots of oxygenator plants. Those are the key to today's post, the anacharis and hornwort.
They're key because there's quite a lot of them already...
...which seems to suit the goldfish. The ones that I could see were tearing around, not letting me get a good photo:
In fact that's a pretty terrible image, and I probably should not have shared it.
The reason I did though...
...baby fish! (There are at least three in that photo)
Hello!
Hello to you too!
This next one was a bit bigger (still very small), and appears to be shedding:
This one was sooo tiny:
Sitting for a while at the water's edge I couldn't count all of the little ones -- there were probably a couple dozen at least.
How could there be? The fish have only been in here for 60 days (at most) and were pretty small when I got them. I had no idea they'd spawn almost immediately! Maybe the abundance of mosquito larva moved things along? Enough food for reproduction?
Plenty of habitat for hiding:
Probably more than I'd really like, but I won't pull any out just yet.
So surprising and exciting!
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Yup - goldfish breed early and often! When we see spawning activity we stop feeding our fish. Then we end up with one or two new fish a year as opposed to a dozen or more. Nature's natural population control!
Oh how cool!! We've had ponds for years and have yet to have a successful spawning in any of them.
Lisa: I've never fed my goldfish -- they eat what they find. Remember how my goldfish population hit 60 or more that one year? :)
Mark/Gaz: But you have koi and these are just cheap comets -- that's the difference I suspect.
Exciting! One of our little fish (minnows, because they were out of gambusia and said the minnows would also take care of mosquito larva) is definitely showing a baby bump. I wonder if I'll even be able to see the babies they'll be so small.
Cute! I suppose not all of the baby fish will grow up? Seems like your pond remodel has been a success!
That's a nice surprise indeed!
Congratulations on your many new grandchildren. Exciting indeed.
Adorable!
True! I think as they mature they may start eating eggs - or maybe it's our koi that keep the goldfish population down!