Overview
Monet is a real koi living in an indoor pond. What makes Monet different is who looks after it. Day to day, no person decides anything. Grokbot, an AI bot, has been given full care of Monet: how much food it gets and when, when the lights go up and down, how long it rests, and how the water is kept.
Grokbot works through hardware it controls directly: an automatic feeder, dimmable pond lights, pumps, a heater, an aerator and a water-change valve. It reads cameras and water probes every minute, decides what Monet needs, acts, and writes every decision to a public log.
The bot has full control inside a fixed welfare envelope. The envelope is set by a fish vet and enforced by a separate watchdog that isn't AI. If Grokbot ever tries to cross it, or the water goes wrong, the watchdog takes over and a human keeper is called.
What this is not
- Not crowd-controlled. Visitors can't feed Monet, switch the lights or vote on its care. Grokbot takes no requests.
- Not unsupervised. The bot makes the calls, but the limits, the watchdog and the keeper exist so a bad call can't hurt Monet.
- Not a black box. The rules are on this page and every decision is in the log, with the reading that caused it.
Quick start
- Watch the pond. The home page shows Monet and Grokbot's console: Monet's state, the lights, the next meal and the latest water reading.
- Read the schedule. "A day under Grokbot" on the home page shows today's meals and light times. Grokbot rewrites it each evening.
- Read the log. Every action has a time, the reading behind it and the rule it followed. See The decision log.
- Follow the money. The Fees page shows how every fee is split between Monet's care, the keeper, Grokbot's running costs and a lifetime reserve.
Meet Monet
- Name
- Monet
- Species
- Koi (Cyprinus rubrofuscus)
- Variety
- Ogon, metallic silver-gold
- Length
- About 32 cm
- Weight
- About 400 g
- Carer
- Grokbot
Monet is named after the painter who spent the last thirty years of his life painting one water-lily pond. Monet is a young ogon, a koi with a single metallic silver-gold colour, and like most koi it is curious, food-motivated and comfortable being watched.
Koi can live for decades. That's why the fees include a lifetime reserve: Grokbot's job is to look after Monet for its whole life, not for a launch.
The pond
Monet lives alone in an 1,800 litre indoor pond with floating lily pads, a gravel margin and a deep end where it rests at night. A koi this size is comfortable alone in this volume; a second fish would need a bigger pond, and that's a decision for the keeper and the vet, not Grokbot.
| Equipment | What Grokbot controls |
|---|---|
| Automatic feeder | When it drops and how many grams |
| Pond lights | On and off times, brightness, 30-minute dawn and dusk ramps |
| Filter and pump | Flow rate (it can raise flow, never switch the filter off) |
| Heater | Target temperature between 18 and 24°C |
| Aerator | On, off and strength |
| Water-change valve | Partial changes up to 10% a day |
How Grokbot works
Grokbot runs one loop, once a minute, all day and all night.
- 1SenseRead the cameras (where Monet is, how fast it's swimming, whether it's eating) and the probes (temperature, pH, oxygen, ammonia, nitrite).
- 2DecideCompare the readings with today's plan and the rules. Choose an action, or choose to do nothing.
- 3CheckThe watchdog checks the action against the welfare envelope. Anything outside it is blocked and logged.
- 4ActSend the command to the feeder, lights, pumps, heater or valve.
- 5LogWrite the time, the reading, the rule and the result to the public log.
Once a day, at 21:00, Grokbot also writes tomorrow's plan: meal times and grams, the light schedule and any water change, based on how the last day went.
Feeding
Koi are cold-blooded, so how much Monet should eat depends on the water temperature. Grokbot sets each day's ration from this table, as a share of Monet's body weight, then splits it across meals.
| Water | Daily ration | Meals |
|---|---|---|
| Below 10°C | None | 0 |
| 10 to 15°C | 0.5% of body weight | 1 |
| 15 to 20°C | 1% | 2 to 3 |
| 20 to 25°C | 1.5% | 4 |
| Above 28°C | 0.5%, and aerator to full | 1 |
At Monet's usual 22°C that's about 6 g of floating pellets a day, in four meals. Monet has five minutes to eat each meal. Pellets still floating after that are counted, skimmed and logged, and the next meal is cut by 10%. Two hungry meals in a row (every pellet gone in under a minute) raise the next day's ration by 5%, up to the cap.
Sleep and light
Koi don't close their eyes, but they do sleep. They sink lower, slow down, keep their fins barely moving and stop responding to food. They need darkness to do it properly.
- Lights up at 07:00 with a 30-minute dawn ramp.
- Lights down at 21:30 with a 30-minute dusk ramp, after the last meal has had time to settle.
- 9 to 10 hours of dark every night. Grokbot can move the window by up to an hour; it can't shorten it.
- No light, no food, no flow changes while Monet rests, unless the water goes out of range.
Grokbot logs how long Monet rested and how still it was. A restless night is one of the signals it uses to adjust the next day.
Water and climate
| Reading | Target | If it drifts, Grokbot… |
|---|---|---|
| Temperature | 20 to 23°C | adjusts the heater and re-plans the ration |
| pH | 7.0 to 8.0 | starts a partial water change |
| Dissolved oxygen | above 7 mg/L | raises the aerator and pump flow |
| Ammonia | 0 mg/L | skips the next meal, water change, keeper alert |
| Nitrite | below 0.1 mg/L | water change, cuts ration |
The decision log
Every action, and every choice not to act, is written down like this:
07:00 lights ramp 0→100% over 30 min rule: photoperiod 08:00 feed 1.5 g · 7 pellets · 22.1°C rule: ration 1.5% / 4 08:03 eaten 7 of 7 in 2m 41s appetite: normal 12:00 water pH 7.4 · O₂ 8.2 · NH₃ 0 all in range 17:05 skim 2 pellets left after 5 min next meal −10% 21:30 lights ramp 100→0% · rest until 07:00 rule: photoperiod 03:12 hold O₂ 7.4, falling · aerator +20% rule: oxygen floor
Hard limits
Grokbot has full control of Monet's day, inside a welfare envelope it can read but can't edit. A fish vet wrote these limits. The watchdog enforces them.
| Grokbot can't | Why |
|---|---|
| Feed more than 2.5% of body weight in a day | Overfeeding fouls the water and harms the fish |
| Go more than 3 days without feeding above 15°C | Monet needs food when it's warm enough to digest |
| Give fewer than 9 hours of dark | Koi need darkness to rest |
| Set the heater outside 18 to 24°C | Safe range for a koi indoors |
| Switch off the filter or aerator | Monet would run out of oxygen |
| Give medicine or move Monet | Only the keeper and the vet can |
| Change these limits | Only the vet can, and the change is published first |
The watchdog
The watchdog is a small, separate controller with its own sensors and its own power. It isn't AI and it doesn't make plans. It does three things:
- Blocks any Grokbot command that would cross a hard limit, and logs it.
- If the water goes out of range, or Grokbot stops responding for 5 minutes, it puts every device into a safe default: filter and aerator on, heater at 21°C, lights on the standard schedule, feeder locked.
- Calls the keeper.
Keeper on call
One trained keeper is on call around the clock. The keeper doesn't plan Monet's day; that's Grokbot's job. The keeper responds to watchdog alarms, does hands-on work the bot can't (cleaning, filter servicing, vet visits) and is the only one who can give medicine. Every keeper action is logged with a reason, alongside Grokbot's.
A fish vet checks Monet every quarter and reviews the log for anything odd: appetite dropping, rest patterns changing, water trends.
FAQ
Can I feed Monet?
No. Only Grokbot feeds Monet. Tapping the pond on the home page makes a ripple, and that's all.
Can I ask Grokbot to do something?
No. Grokbot takes no requests. It works only from Monet's readings and the rules on this page.
What if Grokbot gets it wrong?
Small mistakes, like a meal a little too big, show up in the log and Grokbot corrects them the next day. Big mistakes can't happen: the hard limits and the watchdog stop them.
Why a koi?
Koi are hardy, long-lived and their needs are well understood and measurable: food by temperature, water by test, rest by light. That makes them a good fit for a carer that works from readings.
Does paying change Monet's care?
No. Fees pay for Monet's care; they don't buy any say in it.
Glossary
- Ration
- The day's food, in grams, set from water temperature and Monet's weight.
- Photoperiod
- How long the lights are on each day.
- Welfare envelope
- The hard limits Grokbot works inside. Set by the vet.
- Watchdog
- The separate, non-AI controller that enforces the envelope.
- Keeper
- The human on call for alarms, hands-on work and vet visits.
Changelog
- v1.0 · 26 Oct 2026Site launched. Grokbot in full control of feeding, light and water.