A couple of weekends back Dr. Wife and I purchased three weather loaches (sometimes called “dojo loaches“) from a seller on eBay. The loaches were due to arrive this past Monday, which was perfect timing: it was after Dr. Wife’s residency graduation and the related weekend of festivities.

Before the dogs and I departed (one last time—praise the Lord!) for North Carolina and the graduation weekend, I received an e-mail update: the loaches were arriving early! It turns out they showed up on our front stoop sometime last Friday, the day of Dr. Wife’s graduation dinner.

After doing some hasty research (talking to CoPilot), I learned that loaches ship very well and can tolerate the low oxygen environment of a mylar bag for up to a week. The fish had shipped out of Texas around midweek, so they were safe to sit on our front stoop for a day.

Of course, the South Carolina heat is intense right now, and when I arrived home, the bricks of our front stoop were emanating heat. The seller packaged the loaches well, including a few ice packs to keep things cold; those packs were completely thawed out. Upon getting the box inside and open, I could immediately tell that one loach had not survived the journey, with a second in questionable condition.

I began the usual process of introducing new fish to the pond: floating the bag for about thirty minutes so the water temperature in the bag could adjust to the pond’s temperature, then opening the bag and ladling in some pond water, allowing the bagged loaches to float for another fifteen minutes or so. When I added the water, I reached down to pull out the deceased one; in doing so, the other loaches began moving quite actively. Huzzah!

In the aquarium trade, sellers that ship fish almost always send an extra fish or two in case of any “D.O.A.s” (dead-on-arrivals). This seller was no different: they sent us four loaches, so with the loss, we still had the full contingent of three we purchased. Naturally, I would have loved for all four of them to have survived, but such are the risks.

As of the time of writing (Thursday morning), I have not found any loaches dead in our filter, so they seem to be doing well.

With loaches, we won’t see them too frequently. They largely live at the bottom of the pond, burrowing into the soil. That burrowing aerates the soil and keeps it fresh, releasing helpful nutrients into the water column. They’ll also eat detritus and other little dribs and drabs that drift down there.

They’re called “weather” loaches because they are responsive to changes in barometric pressure (indeed, they require a certain number of cold days in the winter and a certain shift in pressure to induce mating and breeding behaviors. If there is a sudden drop in pressure, they will (likely) surface. They also tend to surface after the other fish have fed.

We spent a little bit extra to get a golden color morph so we can see the loaches (and, less importantly, to match the aesthetic of our rosy red minnows) more frequently. They are really cool critters, something between a fish and an eel.

Today’s video examines the introduction of these humorous animals into our koi pond.