And...

Tog is eating again as of today.

I sure wish I understood what the reason is... I guess fish, even though they're not breeding or holding eggs go through periods where they don't eat?

At the advice of Fish Whisperer, I don't feed my fish on the weekends, so they had just come off of a two day fast and Tog decided to fast for a third day. Weird.

Today, Tuesday, they were more interested in the spirulina. Voracious would be accurate. They were rather apathetic about the New Life Spectrum food. *shrug* I have no idea what the deal is.

Quiet Pets in the Corner

Things continue to go well as of the writing of this post.

Moe has continued to do well this past month and is now out consistently in the tank. Moe is more of a gold/gray color and is a bit smaller in length than the other two gray fish. So she is easily identifiable at least to me.

Coco, the formerly skinny fish, is now the same size as the other gray female (The Other Gray fish, now named TOG) in the big tank and as such is nearly indistinguishable, at least to my husband. I can still tell her apart, but only because I spent the last six months staring worriedly at her. And she at me, I'm sure. The difference is that Coco's coloring is just a bit darker gray in color than Tog's and she still has some small indentations just above her eyes from her crash diet. Impossible to notice unless, like me, you've been staring at her for hours on end.

Tog, who for months, has been the dominant fish in the big tank has now relinquished her dominant status to Coco, which I find very interesting considering that Coco was near death just a short couple months ago.

One of the white females is presently in egg laying mode. She's cleared out a spot of substrate behind one of the large gray ornaments for this purpose. She, however, isn't dominant in the tank and so has to sneak back there to move more rocks, and then moving herself when Coco comes sailing through like the Queen of Tides.

Tog isn't eating right now, and I'm thinking it's just because of the bullying going on in there due to the egg laying female. She has a couple of loose scales, but other than that and a little bit of hiding, her behavior seems normal. She stays in the corner of the tank away from everyone when the feeding starts, making her way to the middle of the tank when all the others are distracted with filling their bellies. She attempted some spirulina this morning, but spit it. Had no interest in the New Life food. We'll continue to observe for any other odd behavior.

It's been cold here lately. Cold for California, that is. It reached in the high 30's the other night. The big tank is a corner shaped tank and as such is in the corner of my living room. There are two windows in that corner, both have double-paned glass and wood shutters to act as insulation. However, I've noticed that the heater has been on a lot in that tank. The heater is on the back of the tank which has the most window exposure. I researched online regarding insulating the tank, thinking that might be part of the reason the heater's on so much. There are various ideas out there, all involving a minimum of $20, but I'm rather poor right now.

I've long said that newspaper is one of the best insulators, which is why homeless people use it. It's cheap and effective. Wouldn't you know, I have Sunday's paper sitting on the living room table and two large plastic zipper bags. Large enough to hold a few newspapers. Soooo, I zippered up some newspapers, used packing tape to secure it to the back of the tank. If I determine more newspapers are needed in the bag, I can just unzipper them and add them in.

It's been an hour and I've only seen the heater come on once. This is a major improvement. We'll see how it continues.

I continue to do 25% to 30% weekly water changes in all the fish tanks, checking the levels before the tank change with a 6-in-1 test strip, as well as a day after the water change.

Later Rather than Sooner.

Since I had a 4 day weekend for Thanksgiving, it gave me a good opportunity to observe the two females in their hospital tanks.

Both fish were eating and acting normally. And their poop was normal. All very important things. In addition, they were curious about the goings on outside of their tank and would swim over to peer around the corner to see what we're doing. With the tanks being on the edge of the kitchen and it being Thanksgiving, needless to say, there was quite a lot going on!

Given their normal behavior, On Friday, 11/28, I called Fish Whisperer to ask him if he could think of any reason they couldn't be moved back into the big tank. He briefly surveyed me regarding their health -- eating, behavior, poop -- all normal. His verdict -- it should be OK. He validated my normal fish moving strategy, which is to acclimate them to their new tank (temperature & water parameters) and then let them loose in their new tank before we go to bed (i.e., it needs to be dark in the house). Fortunately, that's something I'd learned when I was breeding them. If these fish are put in the tank during the daytime, the newcomer always gets beat up.

In preparation for their move-in, I did a 25% water change in the big tank -- I normally do tank changes in the big tank on Sundays, but I want to give them some time to settle in before I clean again. If they're doing well in there, I'll do my next tank change on Wednesday night and then another one on Sunday, then I'll be back on schedule.

So, I acclimated them for about an hour and a half. Overlong, I know, but I wanted to make sure they would be OK. Then turned the lights out, did some stuff upstairs for about a half an hour and then came down and let them free in the big tank.

The next morning, Saturday, 11/29, Coco was out in the fray with the other four fish. Moe, however, was hiding in the back of the tank wedged between the tank wall and the heater. Which is quite opposite of what I thought would happen given how skinny Coco is and how mischievous Moe proved herself to be while hospitalized. Different personalities, I guess. Moe came out briefly when I fed the other fish, but neither Coco nor Moe ate anything.

I don't feed them on the weekends other than Saturday morning. But they all came out to see if I would feed them on Sunday. I noted that Moe had a couple of beat up scales on her left side, which is the side that is not against the tank wall.

I fed them on Monday morning and they all ate -- Moe, Coco and the other four fish. That made me happy to see that. Monday evening, they all ate again and I noted that Moe was a little more beat up on her left side. (sigh) It irritates me that I worked for five months to get them healthy again and in a matter of a couple of days they can beat each other up so bad. Even though her scales are beat up, her fins appear to be whole and not ragged, which is good. It could be that she's beating herself up by hitting herself on the aquarium ornaments when she's trying to get away from the others.

When I show up to feed them, Moe's behavior appears to be normal. She darts quickly to grab some food before any of the other fish notice that she's out. I think she's hiding because she's being bullied. Which I'm hoping will abate by the end of the week.

I'm pleased with how well Coco is doing.

Interesting note: They both still prefer the New Life Spectrum food over the spirulina, which my Fish Whisperer said is like the difference of steak vs. salad.