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Dick, it has been many years since I had an aquarium. I had the marble angel fish that is similar in your photos, some Swordtails and a number of brilliant-tailed guppies. A second bigger tank had 4 "Siamese Catfish" that looks quite different from a Hi-Fin Pangasius (longer with flatter heads) and 4 "golden Carp". From all these, the only one that has survived when I shifted them all to a small pond that I constructed at the corner of the patio are 3 catfish plus the 4 kois (carp?) that was added 5 or 6 years ago. The catfish are about 14 to 15 inches long and looks like they weigh between 500 to 600 grams. The kois are a little smaller but bulkier and weigh about the same.

Below is a photo of Lady kissing the Koi. She does this every time I stand near the pond. The Kois seem to know her and they raise their heads out of the water and Lady then licks each one. The catfish seem to be quite shy and keep away. In the photo, there are about 6 Koi, the two biggest ones (approximately weighing about a kilo each) died when my self-designed aerator and filter (via a waterfall) broke down. You can just see one of the catfish on the upper left corner of the photo.



We have lots of exporters of exotic salt-water aquarium fish here. Do you import some of your fish?

SS

Dick, I think the Discus are very beautiful fish. My wife's cousin breeds them quite successfully.

Dick,

I do not have much vegetation in the pond. When I did put some water plants in it, the koi just trashed it. I did notice then that once, there were a small but thick school of tiny fingerlings. I did not know then, as I still do not know now, from which specie it came from as I had five species of fish then in the pond. I suspect that it came from a large specie of carp-like goldfish that I still have now. None of the fingerling survived. I do not have water plants in the pond now, but I do have some plants/creepers that grow into the pond and these the koi keeps trimming to the waterline. I have never seen any fingerling in the pond the past two or three years. The three I saw recently was put there by a neighbor some weeks ago and these have grown and looking more like the carp-like goldfish that I have in the pond. The catfish did not bother these fingerlings as through the years they have learned to take the floating pellets that I feed the koi.

SS