Tony strikes again

Tony's tank had been looking a little murky and the snail (was this one George?) didn't seem to be moving much.  You may remember from this blog entry that we moved the snail to another tank, then eventually decided that maybe he (she?) wasn't dying, so we put him (her?) back into the big tank.  I kept finding the snail half buried in the rocks or half under the plants, but when poked, s/he would move a little, and seemed to move occasionally during the day when we weren't home, so, maybe he was hibernating.  Snails hibernate, right? Right? Well, maybe not...eventually the snail "disappeared", but the water wasn't too gross, so I decided that maybe the snail really as hibernating or something.

Then, the other day, I noticed that the snail shell was back on top of the rocks.  And it was empty.  Hmm.
 Well, that sucks. It is still a pretty shell, though, right? So we are working under the theory that Tony da Fish, either killed or waited until the snail died....and ate him.  Ew.  So that brings Tony's grand total to two dead fish and two dead snails.

Probably due to the dead snail's decaying body, the tank built up a lot of algae, so today we went to the pet store to see if we could get a sucker fish to get rid of some of the yuck.  The pet store clerk talked us into a tool to clean instead...she also thought it sounds like Tony is a hazard to others.

 But, despite being a hazard to other living creatures in his tank...he is sort of entertaining.  Although he is way too big to flush, so we'll have a fish graveyard when he dies.  Sigh. Don't die anytime soon, Tony da Fish.

The Pets are a pain

Earlier this week we were pretty sure that Tony da Fish had done away with George the Snail.  George was spending a lot of time on the bottom of the tank, upside down, not moving and kind of hanging out of his/her shell.  Despite the absence of smell, which many of our snail expert friends claim is the best way to find a dead snail, we were pretty sure he was dead.  But...because we thought he might not be dead, we put him in a separate bowl to see if he disintegrated.






Notice how s/he is oozing out of his shell?  Icky.









Imagine our surprise when he moved!  It still appears that George might not be well (a sick snail?) but he's not dead yet!

So I gave him (her?) a piece of lettuce and some fish food...we'll see.  Today he (she?) has snotty things hanging off--either they are snail babies (?) or he has a cold....right.







In other news, I found Tigger sitting in Indy's bowl.  At first I thought he might be using the water bowl as a litter box (he has used Indy's food bowl previously, as a sign of his anger)...however, since he turned around and started drinking water, I suppose he didn't.  Weird cat...his tail is all wet...