Fear the Crab

Before I put Meeth in my new tank, I had to get some more things. Namely stuff like plants and decorations. I went looking for the peppered otos, too. Turns out not too many stores here even carry the regular otos. However, one store did carry regular otos, and whilst there I also saw pygmy corys. Pygmy corys barely get longer than an inch, and like most corys they are sociable bottom feeders. I bought three pygmy corys, plus some live plants, and two small bridges to decorate the bottom.

The air stone I got is nice, but the valve I bought to regulate the air flow sucks. It’s supposed to let me turn this knob to have more or less air, but it only has on and off. I’ve asked Maile to see if she can get me a better valve when she passes by the pet store today.

After acclimating the pygmy corys, I decided to name them Poppyⁿ, with n=3 in this case. I considered giving everybody an individual name, but since I can’t tell them apart, and they like to school, I chose one name to apply to all of them.

When I got to Maile’s house, I was finally able to observe Meeth in the goldfish tank. I was also able to finally observe how abused he was in there. Meeth would hang out on one end of the tank (left side glass, specifically) and just cruise. Meanwhile, the big fat goldfish would waddle-swim from one end to the other, and in their never-ending quest for more stupidity would try to swim through Meeth. Maile says that in the beginning Meeth would get pushed around, but at that time he had learned to keep an eye out for the lumbering oafs. Still, it must not be very calming to have to do 3-point turns every 10 seconds.

I felt so terrible that I left Maile’s house early, with Meeth. I acclimated him, and now he seems okay. He spent the first hour swimming around the tank, trying to discern his surroundings, I guess. Meanwhile, Poppy³ would occasionally check Meeth out, but for the most part stayed in a corner Meeth wasn’t exploring.

Towards the end of the night, all the fishies seemed tolerant of each other. It’s still early, though, so I’ll have to continue to observe them to make sure everything’s cool. I might need another plant to give these guys a greater sense of security