I decided that yesterday was the day and what a day it was! It was sunny, 70s, just beautiful. Started loading up the tank and trailer at 3:30PM. Couldn't find the right size ball for the trailer, struggled getting the tank loaded, the high capacity trash pump I had planned on using had a stripped pulley which I didn't find out until after I had changed the oil and filled it with gas so I subbed a small 110V sump pump. I finally made it to the school at about 4:30PM and it was raining pretty steady. We started transferring water from the Tilapia tank to the portable. The undersized pump was working too slow and not needing that much water we started a siphon to help drain the tank down. By 6:15PM the fish were loaded and I was on my way. Arrived at home at 7:00PM. Started backing the short axle tiltable trailer through the gate and got stuck in the mud about 15' from the edge of the pond in a low spot. While assessing the damage and bucketing water into the tank to acclimate the fish to the pond temperature I decided that this may be a good opportunity to get a count and some pics. I pulled the plug, tilted the trailer and letem' rip. I started counting around 7:30PM. I can't catch fish in a puddle to save my life! I picked them up one at a time and put them in a bucket. My yellow lab Emma was a great help in keeping the bucket aerated. She would promptly dunk her head in the bucket after each fish was added and blow bubbles. I finally had them all in the pond by 10:00PM...at least I thought. I found 3 more still swimming in the much receded puddle this morning while taking "before" photos of the algae. Only one casulty of the transfer so far, even the almighty tilapia can't survive my size 12 Red Wings, oops. I am offering a free all-you-can-eat tilapia dinner to anyone who can guess the number of tilapia I counted before adding to the pond.
Here's the tank
Inside the tank
Here's the largest
Some others
Here is the algae this morning About half were 3" to 4" with some as small as 1" and one that was about 8".
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen W. Hawking
