Fish Motel

We decided we had to make an emergency visit to the Aquascape place, to see if the little koi in our pond needed food, and what to do about the algae, and if the pump had a filter, and what sort of water they needed. Everyone at the new house has been very mysterious about the fish. The former owner just assured us that "Jeremy" would know what to do with the fish without saying who or where this person was, and then flitted off before we could ask. There is still a lot of her stuff around the house, even after she came back to claim Thursday's collection of things. (I found a lot of china and battered silverplate this morning, including a celtic knotwork Lenox dish that I partly want and partly have no use for, since I don't usually serve my cranberry sauce in a Lenox dish and it does not match my only other Lenox piece, a Christmas mug.)

So we thought we would go ask a professional about the fish, and drove to a former motel that now has ponds, fish, and fish supplies. This was a mistake, as the ponds are way, way more expensive than any doll, and J really likes one that looks like a trout stream. This stream is $4,000 USD not including the rocks, and $10,000 if installed by the shop's professional installers; also you still have to hump your own rocks. It does look fabulous, though, just like a 20 foot trout stream, assuming you already had some miniature pines and ornamental grasses and all the natural stones that make it look like a stream and not like a rubber water slide.

I asked if my fish needed food, and the answer was "probably" and the shop owner sold me a "small" can the size of a coffee can, which turned out to contain some things that looked like flattened shrimp toast. We went straight home and put 3 flakes in the water, and the fish looked interested, and ate all of it without seeming ravenous, and then went back to eating the algae. They looked ok, and swim about briskly, but the water level is lower than it should be, so now I have to read what to do about the water--I don't think I can just dump in Lake Michigan water in there, but I don't really want to go buy 40 bottles of Aquafina to put in there either. Even on sale at Costco