News from the Fishtank
So I researched dwarf puffer fish and learned many interesting things. First and foremost of which is that Dwarf Puffer Fish and Long-tailed Zebra Danios are probably the worst combination ever. Brilliant. Apparently the adorable teeny tiny 1.5" puffers are notorious nippers and will nip other, even much larger fish, to death. My Danios are prime targets for this treatment because they are long-finned. There is a chance however that my puffer may not exhibit this behavior which is what I am hoping for. But this is all beside the point until I can be assured that he A. will live and B. will not spread disease to my other fish which means about three weeks in the quarantine tank.
I also found out that these guys are really picky about the food they eat and will sometimes eat only live food. Well that is a behavior that my puffer exhibits which may be the reason he was starving to death in the first place. So I have had to procure live food for him which means hatching brine shrimp. This is not the easiest operation and makes my room look like the abode of a mad scientist. But I managed to do it and miracle of miracles my fishie ate. It was really fun. Baby brine shrimp are teensy tiny; little itty bitty specs. So its fun to watch the fishies try to catch them. Hard to see the little buggers are. So everything was good and Puffer was looking much happier and heathier and his tummy even unstuck from his spine. Then all the brine shrimp died (I followed the directions and turned the air off, unfortunately I needed to turn it back on and I did not realise this. FYI the life expectancy of a jar of baby brine shrimp with out air is about three hours). So I began the process to hatch the brine shrimp again (the process takes about 1 hour BTW). Puffer slept all night, and then he slept all day. When the new shrimp hatched I tried to feed them to him, but he didn't want any. I didn't know what was wrong. Then the shrimp all died again (I still hadn't learned about the whole air thing. What? Living creatures need to breath? I am a biology major and had a whole semester of Zoology?). So anyway, at about 6:30 I declared a fishie emergency and called in an expert. Unfortunately Elisabeth was at VBS (Darn kids). So I watched Master of Champions and So You Think You Can Dance and waited. So Elisabeth called me back and I explained to her the whole situation (she revealed to me the whole air thing) and we came up with the most likely problem. Constipation. My fish is constipated. I don't know if a fish can die of constipation, but I really hope not. So I am hatching yet another batch of brine shimp (drat them) and we will hope for better things tomorrow. On the upside Puffer looks a little better now and is moving around to find the best spot to sleep and Elisabeth says that baby brine shrimp are incredibly nutritious so Puffer should have gotten some good stuff out of his meal. The outlook is pretty good. I have to go salt some eggs now.
