What Makes Me Happy: Koi Ponds
What Makes Me Happy: Koi Ponds
Happiness 7 years ago No Comments

Koi Ponds

There is something so serene about koi ponds. The beauty of the green grasses, the sound of the trickling water, the slow movement of the painterly fish. These mini-ecosystems are the perfect nexus of flora and fauna, representing balance and inducing harmony. Maybe that’s why they are my happy place.

Why Koi Ponds

Fortunately, my husband and I have a koi pond at our house. More accurately, it is IN our house. To be even more precise, our house actually surrounds it. Picture a square donut with a 12-foot square donut hole. Now picture that hole open to sky above and containing a small pond below. (FYI: This post’s feature image is not our pond; rather, it belongs to The Pond Digger.)

When we bought the house, it came with the pond and three large koi. Since we have two stories of glass surrounding the atrium, we are able to see the fish and hear the pond’s tiny waterfall from many areas of the house, which is one of the many features that has endeared us to it.

Before we took ownership, neither one of us had ever had any experience taking care koi or a pond, so we had to learn fast. We have made mistakes along the way – i.e., stressing the fish by introducing too many for the pond’s volume, and feeding them when the water temperature was too low, leading to one fish’s demise.

And not everything has worked out as we had hoped. My dream of many gorgeous, flowering lily pads delicately floating on its surface has yet to materialize because the fish always end up treating them like their own personal all-you-can-eat buffet.

Nevertheless, the koi pond never fails to delight me, calm me, and make me happy. If you don’t have easy access to one of your own, then here’s the next best thing: 2 hours of zen garden koi courtesy of The Relaxation Channel.

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