Tucker

I named my paradise fish Tucker. He's so amusing. Not only does he zoom around the front of the tank when anyone comes in the room now- which my ten-year-old loves- but he is so eager for food he looks straight up when I open the lid and starts rotating in place. Then he'll jump. I can feed him off my finger. Except if I drop food in, he doesn't see it because he's still looking up, which is funny. 

Moved him into the 33L. So easy to catch. I simply filled a plastic bag with his tank water and let it kinda sink in the water column. Gave him a few flakes, then put the last flake in the bag and tipped it sideways. He went straight in, I tilted the bag upright and lifted him out. No chasing required!

It's lovely to see him in his home tank. 

He's still small- barely twice the size of a white cloud minnow, but so bold! Of course, the first thing he did was go up for a breath of air, spot a white cloud fry, and start eating them all. Then he started hunting snails. I have snails in my shrimp bowl that I can repopulate from, but I also pulled out a handful and moved them into the QT he just vacated. Particularly the horned pond snails, which I like.

And moved some of the white cloud fry there too. I had hoped the three largest ones would be clever or fast enough to escape him but no. He ate one. I caught the other two, and a half dozen tiny ones, and carefully moved them (scooped out with a medicine cup). I don't think I'll actually maintain the daily wc on this tank for the six months it would take to grow these fry out- to be big enough that Tucker won't eat them. But I want to keep the QT cycled (see reasons upcoming post) so figured why not.