Fishy Friday

As Finn explained yesterday (somewhere in all his discussion of eating things), I have a current lack of blog fodder.  If I show you the Rosebud Pink Wrap, even though it's bigger, it will look the same because I'm still working increases.  Once I get it to it's full width, it will start looking different.  I haven't spun anything lately (need to get on that), and I'm really trying to finish up Pattern 15 before I show it again.  Clearly, I need to get my act together this weekend so I've got some fodder for you.

In the meantime, I realized I had introduced you to Balto's new tank and his new friends, The Bobs, but you hadn't met his other friends - The Zippys.  The Zippys are Cory Cats, Green Cory Cats to be exact, and we have 6 (again, to avoid fin nipping, 6 are recommended so the cats will play amongst themselves).  They are bottom feeders so they keep the tank cleaner for us by picking up the food that floats to the bottom from Balto and The Bobs.  They are also super fast, when they want to be (ironically, they spend quite a bit of time sitting like lumps on the bottom of the tank too).  This is why Caleb named them The Zippys.  Move in day for The Zippys wasn't as smooth as move in day for The Bobs.  One of the Zippys injured or lost an eye, but he's healed up and is doing fine now, and Balto got his dorsal fin nipped - also healed up and doing fine now.  Balto had a very agressive attitude towards everyone on Zippy moving day, but I'm not sure if that came about before or after he got his fin nipped.  The Bobs schooled tightly for about 48 hours after we added The Zippys, and The Zippys would freak out if they saw Balto (except for one time when Balto cornered a Zippy and the Zippy sat very, very still and Balto sat on top of the Zippy for a bit).  After the first couple of days though, everyone had settled down, Balto wasn't sitting on anyone else, the Zippys were happily cleaning up everyone's crumbs and The Bobs had loosened up their group and gone back to being huge pigs at feeding time.  We won't be adding any more fish to the tank - you're supposed to have 1 inch of fish per gallon of water and we're 1 inch over right now (I don't count Balto's overly dramatic tail in the measurements).  They've all lived together for about a month now and except for the drama when we added The Zippys, they've all played well together.  Balto has realized he's the biggest, but he doesn't use this power unless he feels The Bobs or The Zippys are crowding him.  The Bobs and The Zippys mostly ignore each other and everyone seems to be happy - in a fish kind of way.

Have a great weekend!