zucchini craze

My camera is alive again, so I'm able to catch up a little bit here. A week or so ago I gave a zucchini slice to the fishes, intending to feed the SAEs. The barbs always swarm it first, and the algae eaters would approach a little later.

To my surprise this time Pinkie came up and did more than just look. He started darting quick jabs at the zucchini, twisting his body sharply to wrench bits off. They were large bits- for him. I was worried at one point he was going to choke himself. Either he's really hungry, or has just discovered he likes zucchini!

I would dice it up finely and feed to them in bites, but it's one of the few foods my danios won't gobble down- they never look for food at substrate level. At other feedings the danios grab food faster than any other fish, and end up with fat bellies while I'm trying to make sure the rest get sufficient to eat. If I feed a zucchini slice, the danios ignore it and the others get their fill. Not the best food for a betta- but it's okay one or two days a week I think.

I miss my algae eaters. Already the hair algae is growing back on some plant leaves, since their absence. I saw a half dozen in the pet shop yesterday (labeled as "flying fox"), but didn't get any because quite a few tanks had fish with split or degrading fins, some with ich spots. I've had enough of ich lately!  But I did buy a fish who was living in isolation; post on him upcoming.