Oh, how terribly sad! I just have gold fish in my small pond but I hate it when any of them die. About two years ago, a couple of my original ones that were about 7 years old died. It was so sad to see something die like that. I also started 2 very small koi years ago but when they got to be about 18 inches long or so I gave them to my sister because they were knocking over plants to eat the roots, eating the roots off my floating plants and in general creating all kind of havoc. She had them for a couple of years until one died when someone sent off a firework that landed in her pond and killed several fish and then about a year later the other one died.

Knowing how much fish that size cost would give me heart failure as well as just knowing that they were gone. But as was said, mistakes happen and you have to be able to forgive yourself. I hope your husband is able to do that! It would take a few years to get the pond back to normal fish size wise but you could buy some really young ones - I was surprised at how fast they grew actually.