all together

Well, I've moved all the fishes (except for Flash, who got Pinkie's bowl with the skull cave) into the main aquarium. The two Cherry Barb from my QT went in last week, Pinkie a few days later. I watched him closely. He was definitely alert when floating in the plastic baggie, all the Barbs curiously swimming around him- but not displaying aggressively.

Upon release swam around with ease; comes up to the surface for air no problem, even swims behind the baffle on the filter through the current without trouble (a few of the Cherry Barb seem to do this on purpose- they will go through, turn around, go through again, repeat- even though they get pushed around). Pinkie seems to be at his full size- two inches- he's a bit bigger than the largest Cherry Barb. He tends to follow the biggest red male around, flaring at him occasionally, but I don't think he's fast enough to catch the other fish. When the Barbs chase each other, they move like little torpedoes.

It's gratifying to see Pinkie in the home tank at last.

I thought he might have trouble competing with the other fish for food, but he sits just below the surface and grabs bites as they float past. He's eating better than ever before, quite a varied diet now- every other day the fishes get one of three types of tropical flakes, or betta flakes, on other days get either shrimp pellets, algae wafers (both crumbled up to bite-size), betta bits, freeze-dried bloodworms, chopped zucchini or peas. They all seem to love the shrimp pellets. The Barbs come to the surface for food now, so that's gotten easier as well.

Pinkie seems to be showing his age, though. He has cloudy spot on his eye- maybe he bumped it? and still a crease in his tail. But the scales have healed, and he seems quite spry.