WSJ -- Didn’t Realize Your New Koi [ fish ] Can Live to 80 ? ................................................................
Oct. 13, 2022
Didn’t Realize Your New Koi Can Live to 80?
Call Fish Rescue
Some homeowners installing ponds got more commitment than they bargained for; ‘You’ve got to worry about putting it in your will’
 
Tabb Lemons added a rescue koi to his ornate pond.
By Kathryn Dill
Kevin Varilek figured the police officer who pulled him over thought he was transporting drugs. There were 150-quart coolers in the bed of his pickup with suspicious looking hoses leading to an oxygen canister in the cab.
Where to?
Mr. Varilek told the officer he was transporting live fish. When the officer popped open one of the coolers, he found himself looking at a bunch of orange and white koi. “You weren’t joking,” the surprised officer said.
Mr. Varilek is an expert at rescuing koi, and he has been busy of late. Pandemic lockdowns sparked interest in building koi ponds, while a subsequent surge in home sales left some sellers at a loss for what to do with their orphaned koi.
Finding new homes for koi and moving them is a whole lot more complicated than driving a rescue dog or cat to a new place. It can require wading into muddy waters to try to lure the bashful fish to the surface. It demands gentle transport in carefully packed coolers, then quarantining the fish before introducing them to new ponds.
“Oxygen levels, the heat of the day -- you have to figure all that in,” said Mr. Varilek, who runs Lehigh Valley Koi Rescue with his wife, Jennifer, out of their Northampton, Pa., home. They perform up to 150 koi rescues each year, and calls have increased as the pandemic has subsided.
Mr. Lemons's 1,200-gallon kidney-shaped pond features a waterfall, bonsai trees, bougainvillea and lotus plants.
People have a lot of reasons for giving up their beloved koi, a variety of carp originally bred in Japan and prized for their vivid colors. They retire to warmer climates or assisted living and can’t take their fish with them. New homeowners are overwhelmed when they realize their backyard water feature is a complex ecosystem teeming with fish that can grow to the size of something you might catch while deep-sea fishing. Many simply don’t realize how long koi will live -- from 30 to 80 years.
“You’ve got to worry about putting it in your will, just like a parrot,” said Mr. Varilek.
It isn’t uncommon for koi to grow to nearly 2 feet and as much as 25 pounds. To roam healthily, they require about 10 gallons of water per inch of length. The bigger the pond, the bigger the koi.
Joe Dufresne, a volunteer at Sterling Animal, with a rescue koi.
Sterling Animal Shelter in Sterling, Mass., built a rescue pond several years ago. Adoptions have been rising ever since, said Executive Director Leigh Grady.
Backyard koi ponds range from several feet across to sprawling setups with underwater lighting, cascades and water dyed a darker blue to protect the fish from blue heron. Once a pond is built and mature, the lure to diversify a koi collection can be overwhelming.
When three butterfly koi and an albino catfish grew too big for their 10-by-18-foot pond, one of two in Ron Waldron’s backyard on the north side of Chicago, it was time to find a rescuer.
“They grow up and you get a little attached to them,” he said. “You don’t want to pawn them off on just anybody.”
The steward he settled on was Richard Price of Ohio Fish Rescue, who performs about 200 fish rescues a year, housing them in tanks and an indoor swimming pool at his 8,500-square-foot home in Strongsville, Ohio. He said requests to adopt his rescue fish went way up during the pandemic.
He quarantines them to monitor and treat ailments including fungal infections and “gill flu.” Pressure changes in their environment can create a bloat that can cause koi to float on their side and require rest in an Epsom salt bath, or gently but firmly squeezing their bellies to burp them.
Mr. Price has rescued fish from as far away as Southern California. During the pandemic, he delivered rescue koi to the home of former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, who had installed an elaborate pond on the grounds of his Atlanta home.
Finding new homes for koi and moving them is a complex process.
Koi enthusiasts say the fish are intelligent enough to recognize the person who feeds them, bobbing to the surface whenever that person gets close. Owners can get emotional about sending them away.
Joe Dufresne, a volunteer at Sterling Animal, recalled standing knee-deep in a pond in a Massachusetts backyard gathering koi while their owner, a man in the process of a divorce, spewed a litany of complaints about his soon-to-be ex. Chief among them: The sale of their home, which forced the liquidation of his koi.
Earlier this year, Mr. Dufresne said, an elderly woman surrendered seven koi after she learned a hole in her pond would cost $10,000 to repair. “It was a very tearful day for her,” he said. “When they did get adopted, I made sure the people shared photos of those fish. I sent them back to her to show her.”
Tabb Lemons is one of the happy adopters. Initially, he was hesitant to introduce new fish into his 1,200-gallon kidney-shaped pond, which features a waterfall, bonsai trees, bougainvillea and lotus plants. He changed his mind after getting a Facebook message about a koi whose owner had died, leaving the fish living in a plastic tub while a caretaker searched for a new home.
“We named it Helen, for the lady who died,” he said. The golden koi is now the largest of the 15 in his pond. “She’s a real looker,” he said.
Write to Kathryn Dill at Kathryn.Dill@wsj.com
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