Please keep us posted on how your large and small tanks both do. I'm sure you will do a great job of caring for both and they will thrive. But it would be interesting what differences and similarities you observe with them.

Hope the colored carps from the pond overwinter well. I'm sure that down the road they will need even bigger quarters. "Back when" I packed our daughter into the car and we visited a local lady who kept koi. She had gone to Shedd Aquarium with some questions and eventually she was sent given out phone number. I was amazed that she and her husband could keep the koi in a yard right next to a woods - part of a fairly extensive forest preserve system along the Thorn Creek drainage. The wily and ubiquitous raccoons should have represented a huge threat to the fish. She smiled when that was mentioned, pointed out the 6-foot security fence around the back yard and observed that their two Doberman pinschers left the pond alone while residing there. ;)

The reason she came to mind was your account of overwintering the fancy carps (you know this, but maybe for someone else, both goldfish and koi, while different species, are both species of carp). That lady had a low-level bookcase around something to the side in her living room. It was an ornate old bathtub! Inside were a couple of koi!

I don't know that the gallonage was as much as in your tank, but there would be a lot of surface area. They didn't have to heat their house any higher for the fish and I'm assuming feeding was pretty modest. And remarkably they didn't seem jumpy.

Your comments about life being short and moving three times in the last year reminds me of the 15 times in six years I moved after high school or our four different residences in the first 7 years after getting married. Each time there were more fish tanks and more boxes of books. Each time there was a diminishing number of volunteers offering to help.

I think if we moved now, life might indeed be short. ;) (Our next anniversary will be our 35th - and we're still 23.) There would be a truckload of books donated to local library fund raisers, a lot of stuff sent to a resale shop (sponsored by an animal shelter) and to our church's support program for people working through tough times. There would also be quite an auction at a local fish club. :)