ShawneeDispatch.com

Ever since we moved into our house six years ago, I’ve wanted a water garden.

Of course, at first there wasn’t really room. When he built the house, the contractor added a 10-foot-square deck on the back. That basically gave us room for a gas grill and a couple of chairs and that was it.

Then, after a couple of years, we added a second deck. That made it possible to add the water feature at last. We settled for a 100-gallon horse tank, painted green on the inside and a copper color on the outside, and settled in to enjoy watching the fish and listening to the tranquil sounds of the water as it trickles over the rocks.

There’s only one problem: I can’t see the fish. Now, does that mean they’re just hiding, or does it mean they’ve been “poached” again?

Let me explain. The first year we had the water garden – four years ago, if memory serves – I bought six fish, I think. Two were about six inches long and four were smaller, about four inches. The smaller fish went first. One by one, they disappeared, until finally all that was left was one of the big ones.

The next year I didn’t mess with the small fry, but bought two of the larger fish. By the time winter came, though, we again were down to just one.

I’ve heard of water birds like great blue herons stalking garden ponds, but finally concluded that our problem was a raccoon. Either that or we’ve got a psychopathic neighbor with a fish food fetish.

I used to keep the fish food in one of those plastic deck storage boxes. But before too long I realized that something was opening the lid to the box and ripping open the plastic bag that contained the fish food.

So I got some plastic storage containers and put the fish food in that. A day or two later, I found the container on the deck with the lid torn away.

So last year when I fixed up the water garden in the spring I thought to spare myself the frustration by not getting any fish. Unfortunately, doing away with the fish not only removed the frustration but also a lot of the interest.

With that lesson learned, this year I bought two four-inch shubunkins. These are sort of variegated goldfish that will grow, I suppose, to a foot or more.

The tank in which our water garden grows is two feet deep to accommodate a water lily. With the rocks and cinder blocks and other stuff I’ve placed in there, there are a lot of places for this year’s fish to hide from predators of either the mammalian or avian variety.

Unfortunately, that also means they can be devilishly hard to see. Usually, if I stare at the tank for several minutes at a time I’ll eventually be rewarded, if that’s the term, with a “sighting” that is not much more than a shadow or a suggestion of movement deep within the tank.

I have made one change. After the fish food disappeared from the deck box overnight, I keep its replacement inside.

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