Pooping babies, and stupid fish

Amber has gone off bottles and is now eating A LOT more solid foods, or at least as solid as jars of baby food can be. This means her nappies (diapers) are not as full of pee as they used to be, but she has turned into a veritable pooping machine. Almost every nappy has poop in it. The good side of this?

"What can possibly be good about this?" I hear you say.

Because she's on "solid" foods, her poop is no longer a runny mess, but just one big solid chunk. The down side. It seems to stink a whole lot more.

Too much information, you say? What do you mean by that?

(insert)Evil Laugh(/insert)

part deuce
One of the goldfish seems to have gone a little whacko. It lies on the bottom of the tank, on its side, then flaps around turning cartwheels and other sorts of non-fish-like manuevers that clearly indicate it's gone a little crazy in the head. I thought it was dying last week, but it survived, but at what cost?

The other goldfish, the big one, the fat one, Mr Piggy (I just named him right now) who I'll also call Stupid Fish, is such a pig. When I put food in the tank he swims to the top of the tank and gobbles up as much of the food as he can before it gets pushed underwater by the stream from the filter. Once enough food gets pushed underwater (I don't know how much "enough" is, it's "enough" in Mr Piggy's stupid little fishy mind) Mr Piggy heads down to the bottom of the tank and starts gobbling up the food down there as fast as he can. Meanwhile Mr Whacko (the brain damaged goldfish) swims around in circles, sideways, while lying on the bottom of the tank; swimming repetitively over the top of a flake of food before collapsing exhausted next to it; which is when Mr Piggy comes down, shoves Mr Whacko aside and gobbles up the flake of food.

I noticed earlier Mr Piggy was swimming around with his mouth open. He looked a little upset. Now despite Mr Piggy getting way more than his share of the food I put in their tank, so much so that he's twice the size of Mr Whacko, Mr Piggy is such a pig that he sucks up the stones at the bottom of the tank and spits them back out again looking for even more food, which I realize is a completely natural fishy thing to do. I guess you can call it natural selection, because Mr Piggy sucked up a stone that was too big for him. Now the stone is not so big that Mr Piggy wasn't able to get it inside his mouth, but it's so big that once Mr Piggy got it inside his mouth, he wasn't able to spit it out. So Mr Piggy has a stone stuck inside his mouth. So he can't eat until one of two things happen (actually three things but that third thing will result in him not eating ever again). Mr Piggy has to either somehow manage to swallow the stone (which is probably as bad as the third thing which I didn't mention) or he needs to spit the stone out.

I have a feeling that in a couple of days, maybe less (maybe more, his fat might keep him alive longer) Mr Piggy will be floating belly up. If that happens, I think it'll be time to give Mr Whacko the old flush-ho as well, then I'll start all over again with a new set of fish. Maybe a small school of tetras, which are way too small to attempt to eat the stones at the bottom of the tank, but a school of tetras would be nice.

And if you're wondering why I don't do something about Mr Piggy before the third thing happens, the only possible thing I could do for him (other than making the third thing occur even sooner) is take him to the Vets, and I'm sorry, but he's a frigging goldfish. I'm not spending god knows how much money at the Vets for him to even attempt to remove a stone from a goldfish's mouth. I told you, it's natural selection. Stupid Fish shouldn't have sucked up more than he can chew.

(insert)funeral dirge(/insert)

*update*

I checked on Mr Piggy this morning and one of the two things had happened. I suspect Mr Piggy spat the stone out because I find it hard to believe he could have swallowed it.

Here's a picture of Mr Whacko (the brain damaged fish on the left) and Mr Piggy, looking as arrogant as ever. I don't know how a fish can look arrogant, but Mr Piggy manages to do it very well indeed.


You can click the picture to view Mr Piggy up close & personal.