Not in MY Pond!

There is a lot of controversy over this photo of a fish a man caught in France– whether this picture is fake or real? I thought I’d throw in my two cents or thoughts:


About 6 years ago, our AMAZING babysitter took the kids to the local pet store and bought them fish. We slowly moved those fish into a 32 gallon tank because they just wouldn’t die no matter what we did.
There were three goldfish (not you’re run of the mill goldfish though, the fancy fatter ones, which EXPERTS like to call KOI because it sounds so much better and elite.) They were of various colors but not overly big in size, and two sucker fish that the kids called Baby Whales (they do really look like miniature whales –Hmmmm…. I might have to capitalize on that, people like anything with the word miniature in front of it…) Anyway – I am not kidding when I tell you that those Goldfish grew to a size that I could not believe and anyone who saw them said there was no way they were not carp. I would say by the time they moved on to a "bigger pond"  (less than a year ago – whoever heard of that kind of lifespan for a GOLDFISH??) they were the size of my husband’s entire hand (and he DOES have big hands if you know what I mean…)
We still have one of the two baby whale’s and it is about 10” long now and pretty fat- he prefers the term “husky”, because it sounds so much better. These fish were definitely not flushable. As a matter of fact (that makes me sound like an old lady) We ended up having to scoop the fish out when they started to swim sideways and dis-color, and took them to a pond where we said they would either die happy or grow even bigger. (I actually pictured them to look as big as this one in the picture!) So, I’m not saying this is a real picture, but I find it somewhat believable considering my experience. I’m no “gold” thumb either – as a matter of fact I’m ALL thumbs when it comes to pets and/or nature of any kind, so it’s not like we were taking such amazing care of these fish that made them grow. I’m kind of wondering if their overall plan was to get so big that they would out-grow the tank and require to be taken to the pond way before it occurred to them to just swim sideways for a few days and shed some scales before we took the hint.

On another note – this is where I become a dis-believer: The size and sheer amount of poop that came out of the fish in my tank at their size was mind-blowing and well, absolutely disgusting. Let alone what must be coming out of the fish pictured?!! The poop would be wrapped around this guy’s legs like a rope cutting off his circulation. Our fish were never without a long stream of what looked like an earthworm hanging from them. It got to the point where we were making up stories of what it really was to the kids, who had they known what it really was, would NEVER have gone poop again! And where there is one of this size fish, there are bound to be others, so this pond he is fishing in is filled with ropes of poop!

What exactly is this size fish eating? Dog food, ground beef, small children?? Because little flakes from a can are in no way going to keep him satisfied. If I ran into a fish this size in my pond, I can’t even imagine what I would do- this is why I purposely do not swim in ponds, (for fear of giant Goldfish and other creatures) but I have to imagine given its bright color, you would see it from time to time from land, and that alone would freak me out. (Like they have hidden legs that will carry them out of the pond one day and run me down) I wonder what the name is for the fear of goldfish?? Carpephobia?

On the fence and saying Not in MY pond – and YOU?

I figured I'd add the shot of our cat next to the fish tank just waiting to rope a few Goldies