His tone contained a trace of the old humor.
Eli looked up.
“Yeah.”
“Lost fish?”
“Sixty.”
Marlene winced.
Roy said:
“That's the problem with experiments.”
Eli waited.
Then replied:
“That's the point of experiments.”
Roy frowned.
“I learned something I wouldn't have learned from a chart.”
Grant looked at Eli.
Eli continued eating.
The aeration system arrived Thursday.
Eli installed it Saturday with Grant.
Two diffusers sat in deeper water, bubbling continuously during critical periods and automatically increasing operation overnight during hot weather.
The first time it ran, Roy watched from the bank.
“Seven hundred dollars for bubbles.”
“Seven hundred forty-two.”
“Worse.”
Eli smiled.
“A dead pond costs more.”
Roy did not argue.
Early August brought the second problem.
No dramatic morning.
No gasping.
Just fish that stopped feeding with enthusiasm.
Eli noticed on Tuesday.
Wednesday confirmed it.
Thursday, the feeding response was weaker.
He checked oxygen.
Fine.
Temperature.
High but manageable.
pH.
Stable.
Then ammonia.
The color on the test shifted farther than he wanted.
He repeated it.
Same.
Eli sat on his heels.
Waste.
Feed.
Biomass.
Everything Hanley had warned about.
The fish had grown enough that the pond’s biological load was no longer the same system he stocked in May.
Three thousand fingerlings had become several thousand pounds of future fish pressing against the same amount of water.
He called Denise.
She answered:
“What are your numbers?”
He gave them.
“Stop feeding today.”
“Completely?”
“For twenty-four hours.”
“Fish can handle that.”
“Then resume reduced.”
“Any dead fish?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Any recent algae crash?”
“No.”
“Water change available?”
“Yes.”
“Slowly.”
“Do not turn this into a chemistry seesaw.”
Eli wrote every instruction.
Over two days, he exchanged part of the pond volume with fresh well water at a controlled rate.
Reduced feeding.
Removed accumulated organic debris from one shallow zone.
Added more gravel media to a small biological filtration channel he had begun experimenting with near the inlet.
Most importantly, he recalculated biomass.
The answer was uncomfortable.
Even with the oxygen system, he was approaching the carrying level he wanted for safe growth.
He had two choices.
Increase infrastructure.
Or reduce fish.
The first option appealed to pride.
The second appealed to math.
Eli chose math.
He called a bait-and-pond supplier forty miles away.
They agreed to purchase several hundred smaller carp for stocking private managed ponds and legal bait use, provided documentation from Eli’s licensed hatchery source came with them.
The price disappointed him.
Not enough to recover his feed cost on those fish.
Roy heard.
“You're selling early at a loss?”
“Some.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if removing them keeps the rest growing.”
Roy shook his head.
“Farming fish sounds exactly like farming corn.”
Eli smiled.
“Mostly.”
They harvested the first batch Saturday.
Grant helped seine.
Eli weighed and counted.
Eight hundred fish left the pond over two scheduled sales.
Population dropped below two thousand one hundred.
Biomass pressure eased.
Ammonia returned to safe levels.
Feeding behavior improved.
Growth accelerated.
That surprised Roy most.
“You take fish out and the ones left grow faster?”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
“Less competition.”
“More oxygen per fish.”
“More feed actually becomes growth.”
Roy looked at the pond.
“Huh.”