bean-wrestling
Dec. 8th, 2006 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7I wish I had some sort of video-recording device.
Plecosaurus, the Plecostomus catfish we inherited (member #2 of the Pescado Non Grata), really likes frozen beans. We throw them in the tank, they defrost and sink, he eventually finds them, and he latches on and wrestles them into oblivion over the course of several days.
Now, we feed him. Mostly we feed the goldfish and then turn the lights out, so that some of it sinks and the (nocturnal) catfish gets some of it. (Rather than the [diurnal] goldfish, who eats everything in sight. To the point that he'll just sit at the surface of the tank making slurping noises when he thinks we might be about to feed him.) We have algae pellets that the goldfish eats some of, but doesn't completely catch, so that the pleco has some left for him.
But the beans-- they're a once-weekly treat.
We've had the PNG for like three weeks now. Pleco has learned, now, what the beans are.
So tonight Z threw one in. For about 20 minutes Plecosaurus didn't react. Leviathan managed to get hit in the head with the floating bean half a dozen times, but didn't do much to it, as he really doesn't like beans.
But then the bean hit Pleco, where he was sucked onto the side of the giant martini glass. He didn't react immediately, but when it passed him again, he detached from the glass and started swimming around. The bean was still floating, and Pleco has no idea how to catch things that are still floating. He's a bottom-feeder, not a things-that-are-floating feeder. So he sucked onto the edge of the tank and used his lips to move quite rapidly up and down the glass, searching for the bean. Bean bean bean bean bean. Pleco knows what the bean is.
He chased it all over, completely unable to catch it. It hit him in the head several times. His mouth is on the underside of his head and he isn't at all flexible, so he had no mechanism with which to seize the bean as it floated around. (It wasn't light enough to float at the surface, but wasn't heavy enough to settle completely onto the gravel either.)
After a mighty chase he finally succeeded in latching onto the thing and wrestling it to the floor of the tank, whereupon he thrashed around sucking on it so hard his tail vibrated. The funniest thing about Pleco is that his dorsal fin is sort of the only body part that can have an expression. It's this big beautiful spiny thing that lies flat on his back. When he's excited, he raises it into a kind of quarter-circle backward from halfway down his back to just above his tail.
He has a pretty good handle on the bean now. He'll wrestle it for a good two to five minutes, and then he'll let go of it and go lie down-- latched onto the side of the tank, or the floor of the tank, dorsal fin down, he'll just sit there motionless for five to ten minutes. Then suddenly his dorsal fin will go up and he'll make a beeline right back for the bean, and wrestle it for a while again.
Keep in mind that it's bright in here and he's nocturnal. This is about five in the morning in his world. By midnight he'll be thrashing like a champion. Tomorrow morning I bet you that bean will be gone.
Meanwhile, I might mention, Leviathan is sitting in the strongest part of the current coming from the water filter, and is swimming like crazy-- with the net result that he isn't moving in the slightest, and looks like a complete spaz. He seems to be enjoying himself but it's hard to tell. He isn't going anywhere. But he's expending as much effort as if he were!! It's like... a fishy hamster wheel. Who knew?
Hopefully Leviathan doesn't become convinced that this 15-gallon Endless Pool is larger than it is, because we do not need him to grow any larger. (If he does, he's totally getting donated to a koi pond. Outdoors.)
Bean bean bean bean bean bean bean. Mmmmmmmmm.
Plecosaurus, the Plecostomus catfish we inherited (member #2 of the Pescado Non Grata), really likes frozen beans. We throw them in the tank, they defrost and sink, he eventually finds them, and he latches on and wrestles them into oblivion over the course of several days.
Now, we feed him. Mostly we feed the goldfish and then turn the lights out, so that some of it sinks and the (nocturnal) catfish gets some of it. (Rather than the [diurnal] goldfish, who eats everything in sight. To the point that he'll just sit at the surface of the tank making slurping noises when he thinks we might be about to feed him.) We have algae pellets that the goldfish eats some of, but doesn't completely catch, so that the pleco has some left for him.
But the beans-- they're a once-weekly treat.
We've had the PNG for like three weeks now. Pleco has learned, now, what the beans are.
So tonight Z threw one in. For about 20 minutes Plecosaurus didn't react. Leviathan managed to get hit in the head with the floating bean half a dozen times, but didn't do much to it, as he really doesn't like beans.
But then the bean hit Pleco, where he was sucked onto the side of the giant martini glass. He didn't react immediately, but when it passed him again, he detached from the glass and started swimming around. The bean was still floating, and Pleco has no idea how to catch things that are still floating. He's a bottom-feeder, not a things-that-are-floating feeder. So he sucked onto the edge of the tank and used his lips to move quite rapidly up and down the glass, searching for the bean. Bean bean bean bean bean. Pleco knows what the bean is.
He chased it all over, completely unable to catch it. It hit him in the head several times. His mouth is on the underside of his head and he isn't at all flexible, so he had no mechanism with which to seize the bean as it floated around. (It wasn't light enough to float at the surface, but wasn't heavy enough to settle completely onto the gravel either.)
After a mighty chase he finally succeeded in latching onto the thing and wrestling it to the floor of the tank, whereupon he thrashed around sucking on it so hard his tail vibrated. The funniest thing about Pleco is that his dorsal fin is sort of the only body part that can have an expression. It's this big beautiful spiny thing that lies flat on his back. When he's excited, he raises it into a kind of quarter-circle backward from halfway down his back to just above his tail.
He has a pretty good handle on the bean now. He'll wrestle it for a good two to five minutes, and then he'll let go of it and go lie down-- latched onto the side of the tank, or the floor of the tank, dorsal fin down, he'll just sit there motionless for five to ten minutes. Then suddenly his dorsal fin will go up and he'll make a beeline right back for the bean, and wrestle it for a while again.
Keep in mind that it's bright in here and he's nocturnal. This is about five in the morning in his world. By midnight he'll be thrashing like a champion. Tomorrow morning I bet you that bean will be gone.
Meanwhile, I might mention, Leviathan is sitting in the strongest part of the current coming from the water filter, and is swimming like crazy-- with the net result that he isn't moving in the slightest, and looks like a complete spaz. He seems to be enjoying himself but it's hard to tell. He isn't going anywhere. But he's expending as much effort as if he were!! It's like... a fishy hamster wheel. Who knew?
Hopefully Leviathan doesn't become convinced that this 15-gallon Endless Pool is larger than it is, because we do not need him to grow any larger. (If he does, he's totally getting donated to a koi pond. Outdoors.)
Bean bean bean bean bean bean bean. Mmmmmmmmm.
