I’ll be weighing in soon on the capture of the Venezuelan dictator Maduro soon over at Free Speech Backlash.  The quick version:  it’s the Monroe Doctrine, baby!  More to come.  —TPP

Yours portly has found a new obsession:  the koi pond that came with our new home.  I’ve been so passionate about tending to this pond, Dr. Wife bought me a book that is apparently the authority on all things koi (that link is an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of the proceeds from any purchase made through that link at no additional cost to you).

The previous owners constructed a very nice pond; from what I can tell from my research, they built a textbook pond for koi.  The problem right now is that the water is incredibly murky, so we can only see the koi when they surface to feed.  It being winter, our koi don’t eat often—they largely hibernate when the water temperature gets below 50 or 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  Currently, our water temperature is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

To that end, I’m looking to purchase some Japanese Trapdoor Snails (JTSs).  These snails are amazing:  they are cold-hardy, so they survive through winter; they give birth to live young, so they reproduce slowly, virtually eliminating the risk of overpopulation; and they are living vacuum cleaners for muck and algae.  However, Fishy Business in Columbia, South Carolina still doesn’t have any in stock.

I’ve been having late-night conversations with Microsoft’s CoPilot AI about stocking the pond, in addition to doing research on my own.  CoPilot brought up ramshorn snails, which I have read about as well.  Unlike JTSs, they lay eggs, so overpopulation is more of a concern; however, koi and the rosy red minnows I added to our pond will often eat the eggs and/or baby snails, so the population should stay in check.  I’ve ordered around twenty of them from a seller on eBay (apparently, you can purchase live snails from randos on the Internet) and will introduce those when they arrive next week.

I mentioned rosy red minnows.  These are an ornamental variety of the fathead minnow (great name), and they’re often sold as bait fish at pet shops.  They’re $0.29 each at PetSmart, so Dr. Wife and I bought ten of them to add to our pond.  They are cold-hardy and also eat algae and biofilm, so they’ll further assist in keeping the pond clean.  They are small, so there is a risk the koi will eat them, but our koi are fed well, so that risk is minimal.  Besides, rosy reds will reproduce come spring, so we should have a stable population (plus, $2.90 is not a huge loss if the koi somehow gobbled up all of them).

Finally, Dr. Wife and I purchased two adolescent/juvenile koi from PetSmart.  We’ve named them Milkshake and Brownie.  Milkshake looks like the fish version of Dr. Wife’s dog, down to the markings; Brownie is just… brown.  I introduced them to our pond the other night; Brownie immediately went underwater and seemed glad to be there, while Milkshake gave us a bit more extended goodbye before disappearing beneath the pond’s murky waters.

Here I am about to add the new koi to the pond (after letting their bag float in the chilly water for thirty minutes, giving them time to acclimate to the pond’s temperature):

To Dr. Wife’s delight and mild horror—she loves our koi, but has a thing about fish—I reached in gently scooped up each fish by hand.  That prevented any ammonia from the bag getting into the pond (that said, when it came to the rosy reds, I just dumped them in—the knowledgeable aquarium guy at PetSmart said that the volume of water was so small, it would not affect our pond adversely).

Here is a better picture of Milkshake and Brownie in their tank at PetSmart; Milkshake is near the top, with the heart-shaped black mark on the side; Brownie is near the bottom of the tank:

Needless to say, it’s been a fun adventure.  I want to create a sustainable and healthy pond environment with biodiversity.  I’m so excited to get the ramshorns into the pond, and then to supplement them with the super cleaners, the JTSs.  The minnows and the koi are so cute and beautiful, and it will be great to be able to see them regularly.