this morning

Perry is still in isolation in the box. He has pooped out a bunch of tiny little triangles- swallowed those baby trumpet snails whole, I guess. I'm surprised it doesn't hurt his insides, and wonder if he got any nutrition from them- did he actually digest the soft snail bodies? I'm not about to rinse the remains to find out, though.

I took my new catfish back to the store this morning. Thought about it all night and still can't think of a way to keep Perry from gorging on the cories' food- and they eat a lot slower, so I think he really would hog it all. I don't want to see him choke on something like Pinkie did, nor to see the catfishes starve. Maybe they could subsist on the biofilm off the leaf litter, but I doubt it. It seems pointless to have one more cory in quarantine to add to the tank, when I'm probably going to have to take these others out and re-home them.

If it comes to that I will move the cories temporarily into my empty betta tank- although it is too small- while I find them somewhere to go... Very bummed about that. Second time trying to keep cories, and it isn't working.

Because I happen to like the aggressive species more. I'm not about to give up my paradise fish. No matter how cute the cories are.
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Late afternoon I let Perry out of the box- the cories having had a good feed this morning on shrimp pellet. Paradise fish immediately went back to hunting. He eyes the trumpet snails carefully, tipping his body sideways to scrutinize each one, and only bites at the smallest of the small. So I guess he can be my snail control- few babies will get past this guy. When the adults get old to die off, I will just replenish by thinning out from the other tanks...

I did kind of stir his poo with a skewer when siphoned out the fry box before removing it. It mostly broke up- no more triangle shapes- with bits of broken shell in there. So I guess he did crunch them pretty well after all.

He also ate two cory catfish eggs off the glass. I didn't even realize they had spawned until I saw Perry eyeing these nice while globes stuck on the glass down near the substrate. He snapped one off before I realized what they were. He tried for the second, tore it in half. Then cruised on looking for something else. And cory eggs (I've read) are tough!