How This Works
Koi can be very cheap to get when they are small, but take a lot of care, much more than goldfish, and they get large quick needing a pond to live in. Also with their 60 year minimum life span, it is tough for a single human to continually take care of a koi for it's whole life. Below is an open notification list which anyone can post to if they have fish that need a new home. The list is moderated and the only messages allowed to pass are ones which announce koi that need a new home -- other messages are deleted.
You have koi that need to be rescued !!!!:
Urgent Koi Pickup !!
If you have a koi that needs to be picked up urgently, then send an email notification to: pkr-fish@yahoogroups.com
Please include the following information:
- how to contact you
- nearest cross streets (area of town you live in)
- approx number & size of koi that need to be picked up
** Please include your phone number. The serious people will call you. People that only contact you through email are more likely to flake out and never show up.
The expectations are that if your entire koi collection needs to be picked up urgently, then the fish should be offered for free, and that one or just a couple of people would come over to your backyard pond to pick them up. The people that pickup the koi would then keep the ones they want, and make the others available for adoption. A reasonable time frame is for the people to pickup within 1 week. For info on how to rescue koi, see Koi Handling Info Page
Another good place to advertise your koi is Craigs List. If you have never heard of it, there is a free classifieds website called Criag's list. There are a lot of koi available there, you can either do a general search in the forsale area for koi and you can look in the pets category for koi
You want to adopt some koi:
If you would like to adopt koi, then subscribe to the notification list so when new fish become available, you will get a notice. The expectation is that if you go to rescue someone's koi (that they are giving away for free), that you will pickup ALL of the koi and help them drain their pond all the way to the bottom.
When group rescues come up (like golf course ponds), the information will be posted up to the notification list. The way a group rescue works is typically everyone shows up at a designated date and time, everyone helps catch the fish, and then those fish are divided up after the pond has been drained. Usually taking turns, one person picks one fish, then the next etc. till all fish have been adopted. You do NOT have to take any fish home, anyone is welcome to just help catch the fish.
More Info Relating To Rescue Koi:
Warranty of koi health
It is expected that when a person picks up a koi, they assume all responsibility for the koi as it goes into their possession. If a koi dies in your car on the way home or when it is shipped to you, well, that is the way it goes, and you should figure out what went wrong so you can prevent that in the future. From my experience rescuing koi, the only un-fixable trouble is when the koi is first rescued from a severe stressed environment where they were already on death's door, such as a golf course pond that was being drained, and the fish were in respiratory distress when picked up.
Quarantine of Adopted Koi
Everyone who has a koi pond should have a quarantine system (spare tank, filter etc), and it is the expectation that the final owner perform the quarantine process. For more info, see Koi Health Info page.
Group Rescues
Anyone can organize and lead group rescues. It is important for the rescue leader to get some kind of written permission to be on the property and to hold a rescue effort. For the proceedure of how to run a pond rescue, it works good drain the pond down to the bottom using rental trash pumps, and seine nets to catch the fish as the water level drops. The rental pumps cost about $35 per day. As you catch the fish, you put them into an intex swimming pool with aerator to hold temporarily as you catch fish. The picture to the right is a 6' diameter intex pool with inflatable ring, you can get them for about $20 at Walmart. After all the fish are caught that day, then pick names from a hat to create an order to go in, and each person gets a turn picking one fish they want. If there are still fish available, do another round of picking. Lots of people like to just catch fish and don't want to take any home. For more info on how to catch fish from large ponds, see Koi Handling Info Page
PLEASE DON'T DUMP YOUR KOI IN PUBLIC WATERWAYS !!!Dumping your koi in a public water way is sending them to their death. Koi dumped in ponds get caught by anglers and the picture to the right is what usually happens. Anglers often display sport fish in this manner even if they plan to return the fish to the pond, and it doesn't really hurt the sport fish that bad because most of them have very strong jaws and fairly light bodies. If you handle a koi like this, their heavy bodies and weak jaws will rip their gills, killing them. Also holding up koi up by a hook & line stuck in their mouth will also cause similar damage. So you can see, just being caught by an angler can kill the koi. There are proper ways to angle for koi & carp to safely catch and handle them, see the Carp Anglers Group for more information. I have also heard of and seen anglers take home koi to eat them. Koi dumped in the canals will last for less than a year - the city cleans each section of the canals and removes all the dumped fish.
Most common reasons people put ther koi up for adoption
Koi live to be atleast 60 years old, are intelligent and very interactive pets. Many koi will swim up to their owners and hand feed or just to be rubbed. With great creatures like this, it sure would be a shame to have their lives cut short. With this in mind, here are some of the top reasons people need to find new homes for their koi:
#1 selling a house - Its tought to setup an adequate temporary pond, and takes a lot of time to keep it working properly so your koi won't die.
#2 want to take a break from the maintenance - Nobody ever tells the truth about how much maintenance is involved with a koi pond. If you have a professionally designed pond with the right filters, the maintenance is a bit easier, but for most people with simple filtration systems, the maintenance is a pain and you really have to like koi to keep up with it. Goldfish ponds are a lot less demanding, and I have picked up many koi from people that were downsizing to just goldfish and shubunkins, or were going to park their pond.
#3 big die off, only couple left - When koi are small, they don't need that much filtration. The problem is that koi grow to be 36" long and as they get bigger, they are much more sensitive to poor water conditions. A common cycle is for people to get a few baby koi, then pickup one or two every now and then. After a time, the koi get bigger and bigger which overloads the filter system and then it suddenly crashes killing most of the koi. Pretty frustrating.
#4 Have small kids - Either people buy a house with a pond, or they have their first child. A pond or pool is a serious drowning hazzard. Better to take a break from the pond, and when the kids are older, start the pond up again.
Disclaimer
(sadly I have to post this) By inviting people to rescue your fish, you agree to hold them or any other members of Phoenix Koi Rescue harmless of liability or damage while we are performing a rescue. We will do our best to be polite and act in a professional manner, but sometimes accidents happen, ponds are slippery and messy. Also the people rescuing your fish agree to hold you harmless of any damage or injury caused to the rescuer or their property. A rescuer is arriving to your location at their own risk.
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