Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Thursday 13 March 2014

Hooptedoodle #124 - Zero Tolerance

The Aggressor - Jeff now has the tank to himself
Domestic violence - nobody expected that. One day my son's goldfish were happily loafing around in their Biorb, and the next day it was chaos. The big yellow fish was chasing the little orange fish round and round the tank, biting his fins, nibbling his scales off, and banging him into the scenery - never seen such a thing before.

It is actually rather worrying - the small fish is really looking very poorly as a result, and it doesn't look like any kind of happy ending is imminent.

Some kind of expert thread on the internet says that the only thing you can do is separate them until everything calms down. It might be the sunnier days, or the onset of the mating season, or it is not unknown for goldfish to attack one which is ailing. Whatever, this was a lot more drama than we are set up for, so we are in an uneasy period of calm while Steve, the small fish, is in his isolation tank.

Victim - Steve in his isolation tank, feeling very sorry for himself, note the case notes
What happens next is anyone's guess - if we have to replace Steve, for whatever reason, I think I might go for a better size match with the next one.

Late edit (Sunday 16th March): Steve has gone back into the main tank - a moment we've all been dreading - and thus far things seem to be fairly calm...

7 comments:

  1. Tricky things - fish !, can't tell what their thinking .

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    1. That's right - up to now, I assumed that they just thought about food, but I'm not so sure now. I never thought about aggressive goldfish before - sharks, maybe - now I don't know where I'm at.

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  2. I had a nightmarish experience with my hamsters. Santa's brought a couple of them to my son. Of course, in the end I had to take care of them. For a whole winter they remained in hide. When in Spring I decided to look if they were still alive I found 8 of them! Unfortunately they were from different generations and the older started to attack the younger. You can't imagine how the rodents can be ferocious. In the end only two of them survived, only to die for a cold in full summer. So your fish was fortunate enough to be saved in the nick of the time. And an advice: never ask Santa for hamsters.

    Fabrizio

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    1. Good story - dreadful though. Never had hamsters - one of my grown up sons once inherited a guinea pig named Otto from a friend. Otto was an imbecile - he ate all the wallpaper in the kitchen up to a height of 15cm from the floor, and he used to get stuck under the fridge if he came out for a walk. We gave him to the local primary school, but we were still finding little pellets a couple of years later. These things aren't even good company, for goodness' sake.

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    2. A cautionary tale of pet ownership from my daughter, who once worked in a pet sanctuary:
      It seems this chap bought his kids a chinchilla - paid £25. Then he read in the owner's manual how easy they are to breed - a little light bulb came on. He rushed out, bought a lady chinchillette, put them together, put on some soft lighting and mood music and waited events. In due course, he was presented with two new chinchillas. Pure profit!
      Of course, chinchillas have no sense of responsibility and don't understand the concept of an incestuous relationship. Pretty soon, supply of baby chinchillas far exceeded demand, and the poor chap couldn't work out which sex was which to keep them segregated.

      They caught him at dead of night dumping 48 unwanted chinchillas on the pet sanctuary doorstep.

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  3. Here's my 'Get Well Soon' wish for Steve, the poor fish...

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