I'm not sure if I should change the title of this thread now that I don't have anymore tilapia.

Tomorrow will be a week since I restocked with goldfish. The water temperature went up to 92 degrees yesterday and I lost about ten fish. All my friends are telling me that my fish will cook but I know they wont because I raised six goldfish with the tilapia last year and not only did every one of them survive but they outgrew all the ones in the cooler front yard kiddie pool.

As I recall last year I lost about 1/3 of my fish when I stocked the kiddie pool. After the inital shock I've only lost 2 fish and they got caught up in the filtration system when I tried leaving the cover off for better filtration. Bad idea! So far this time, I've lost close to 50 fish but none since I last checked yesterday evening, when it reached a maximum of 92 degrees. This morning the temperature was down to 76. Perhaps that is why the fish were able to survive the high daytime temperatures last year. I was told by a friend that nearly every one of the 500 remaining fish at walmart had died so I guess I am pretty lucky. So far I've lost less than the 1/3 I bought at the pet shop last year. They must ship them under a lot of stress.

I already had to do a water change yesterday. Probably because my 300 watt pump I was using last year to run the filters burned up. Instead of running 5 barrels on a 300 watt pump I'm running 4 barrels on 2, 40 watt pumps this year. My bill went down a lot more than the 30 dollars a month I expected to save when the pump died over the winter.

I noticed this morning that the water is clearer than the day before. I also took the hose and shook loose everything I could in my filters before hooking them back up. I couldn't believe how much sludge came out of them. I even did the kiddie pool filter. I couldn't believe how fast those new fish made the water dirty without the filters. By the next day I couldn't see the bottom anymore.

I am feeding them 6 times a day. Still feeding them cat food that I chop up in the blender. I mix half food and half calcium bentonite clay. Seems to be making the ones in the front yard grow really big. I hope the ones in the back yard can handle the heat. It got up to 96 degrees last year and they made it so I think I'll be ok once these guys get acclimated and over from being shipped from China or wherever walmart gets their goldfish from.

I can't believe how small the new goldfish I just stocked are. They look almost small enough for the ones from last year to eat!