Is He Gnawing on a Carcass?

 So, we have a betta now. Yep, just what we need - another fish. It's a red crown-tail betta.

So, let's see - we have the aquarium with:

• One fancy guppy named Shiny. He's the sole guppy in the tank because I suspect he's been terrorizing and brutally murdering the few friends we've put in the tank with him.
• One sweet little loach. Technically his name is Cord, but we just call him Loachy. He's like a tiny snake-fish. He slithers all over the tank in the cutest way. Very entertaining!
• Two albino catfish named Whiskers and Zoidberg. They are the sweetest things. We got the second one because the first seemed lonely. How can you tell if your catfish is lonely? I have no idea, but he seemed to be moping around. Now that we have two they both wiggle their little fishy bodies all over the place and both seem very happy.
• One african dwarf frog. I have no idea what his name is. He has a name, I just don't remember it. He's cute enough, but boring and you really don't see him much so I tend to forget he's there.
• Two new little ghost shrimp. I suspect that these guys also terrorize each other and suspect that we will be down to one, probably the larger of the two, pretty quickly. But they were only 49 cents so I won't be too upset if one disappears.

Then we have the feeder guppy bowl with 4 unnamed female feeder guppies. They look identical so we would never be able to keep names straight anyway. Especially now that 'Crooked Tail' is gone. She was the only one who looked different than the rest. They share the bowl with 4 black mystery snails. (Frisky and Mister Sinister's children). I've discovered that snails are foul, dirty little creatures and that the aquarium is much much easier to keep clear with the snails out of it. Don't get me wrong, I think they are cute and I love to watch them crawl around the tank and use their little siphons and provide shelter for the guppies who like to hang out underneath them, but they really are dirty. And smelly. Don't forget smelly. Oh, and you think a live snail can stink up a bowl? Try smelling a dead one! Whew that's nasty. Anyway, only one of the snails really has a name and that's Snailerbiggius. He is quite large! The others are interchangable and sometimes go by Snailermediumus, Snailersmallius or just 'That Snail There'.

Then there is the bowl with the 4 mail feeder guppies. Again, these guys are unnamed mostly because we can't tell them apart anyway. One is slightly smaller than the others (and seems to be harrassed by the other 3 because of it) but he still has no name.

And just to mix things up, I added our new betta to the male guppy bowl. Now, I know that betta don't mix well with other fish and I would never put it in with something with fancy fins like another betta or a fancy guppy, but I read online several people who had luck mixing betta with boring, relatively placid fish like feeder guppies. (and whatever you read online must be true, right?) All depending of course on the temperament of the particular betta. We had a betta several years ago and we really like him. Velvet was an awesome fish. We got him at a wedding - he was a party favor - each table had one in the center. He was a beautiful dark blue. We had him for quite a while until he died of some fin disease. Poor Velvet.

Well, the new one (as yet unnamed) is a red one. I'm hesitant about red pets. After all, there's the demon gerbil with the red eyes. He is uncommonly evil! I hesitate to give him food because he will attack my hand when I put a handful of food in the cage. He even bit poor little Doodlebug and drew blood and that was through the bars of the cage! I've considered (not seriously) ending his life in a number of terrible ways but then I'd have to touch him and he'd probably chew my hand right off. I swear we all have nightmares about him escaping his cage. Seriously. He's that evil. For a short time the kids decided that he wasn't evil. He was just afraid. Afterall, he's just a little animal, right? Wrong! We've all decided at this point that he is pure unalterated evil. (I sense a horror novel in the making)

But, back on track. Red pets. Red is a warning color in nature, is it not? Red snakes are often poisonous, red bugs are often foul tasting, you get the idea. So getting a red fish, and hoping he's not too aggressive to live with some guppies is pretty silly, but hey. I'll give it a try.

He seems to be doing OK so far. He will chase the guppies, but gives up quickly. I did see him with his head in the castle, which is the guppy hiding spot (I didn't think he'd fit) and assumed he was probably gnawing on a carcass, but no - so far so good. We'll see if it continues.


Quack!