I return today to my fish, and though there have been losses recently, I thought I should show something positive given that there was so much about loss earlier this year.

When disaster struck the pond by the dining room, I removed all the fish that were there except for the one white gourami that had survived. The four catfish, two black and two white, were put into the waterfall pond, where there had been two black catfish earlier. I had not seen much of them in the six months and more they were there, for they lurked in a little cavern behind some of the rocks that had been loosely placed. But they did emerge for food and I would wait most days till I had seen both before moving on to another pond.

This was unlike the two I had put in the ehala tree pond, whom I had for that reason moved to the dining room pond. There I did see them, so I was sorry to put them in the waterfall pond where I thought they would be elusive, but there seemed no alternative.

And I also put in there the three black catfish which I had put into the tank on the balcony where the white Malavi I had put there had eaten the small fish I had put in there with them. But three of them died, as did one of the four catfish I had started with, so I thought I should that tank of them and instead have little fish.

But when Kavi then added five catfish to the waterfall pond, I told him to remove some of the Malavi which had dominated the pond from the time the original pair there spawned, so that, including later progeny, there were over a dozen there. Four of them were moved to the dining room pond, and some smaller ones to the original lotus pond, to join the little fish I had put there when we replaced the mud.  

And then when the waterfall pond had even numbers as it were of different types of fish, seven black catfish and seven Malavi, four red carp and two white catfish, the black ones were much more confident and they are visible when I get to the pond of a morning. They dart about energetically, and the two white ones emerge from their grotto, and weave in and out amongst the carp and the Malavi.

The first picture shows them all mixed up, with one of the white catfish too at the top. The second shows the pond when it was dominated by the Malavi, and the third the little tank on the balcony with Malavi and catfish. Then I have again the pond, when the red carp had been added, followed by a rare glimpse of an elusive catfish. And finally you see the current menagerie of several colours.