he probably does do it on purpose and watches you to see how you will react..he's experimenting on you chickey!! ..I think most fish ..if not all see in colours .

Ha Ha Heidi I think you are right! They will soon be timing me as I am searching the apartment for bits of cheese.

What did that poor little Pesky do to anyone?? Brad wants him dead! He is getting more violent towards him and now I am worried for his safety.

Brad is stalking him, and he seems to be having fun with it. Pesky will sit in the mouth of his shell , and Brad will peek around the point of his shell (like He's peeking around a tree) and suddenly rush him. Well Pesky makes for the inside of his shell and Brad shows off for the girls (and Bart) by scuffing on the floor of the tank and flicking against his shells and nipping them. Then he will go to the other side of the point of his shell and waitl for Pesky to show his face again. Then he does it all over again. It's comical!

If I were Mumsy, I would be calling my babies back to get them away from this bad influence. He is no doubt contributing to the delinquency of the minors in the tank. Bart joins in on his persecution of Pesky, and he is learning to scuff the floor and flick against the shells too. I actually saw him nip at one of Rickey's shells, and spit sand all over the place. He thinks Brad is cool.

The girls are no better. they do not bother with Pesky but they are doing the flicking and shell nipping too. But they are following Brad's lead. They are egging him on I think. (yeah baby! get him!) Brad is getting a swollen head.

Mumsy and Rickey are not too interested in Pesky now since they are busy looking for a spot to procreate in. I did see Bart get a bad nip from Mumsy though.

Could Bart be a girl?? I wonder because Brad does not mind having Bart around but can't abide Pesky at all. Maybe when Bart first came on to Brad's turf he was not so threatening and Brad has just forgotten that he never had any fry. Maybe he sees all three of them as his kids. But why tolerate one male and not the other? Bart is definitely acting like a boy.

THey need shells! I just reordered the shells because for some reason my order didn't go through. Hopefully new shells will give these little ones a place to go.

Speaking of places to go... I have lined up a pet store to take some of my babies when they are older. They will have to follow strict rules from me though. I am making up an information sheet on shellies so that the new owners will know how to take care of their water. I will miss my babies

Here's a photo of Eastwood's latest button sorting. you can see what I mean about the pairs... one color each. He does this alot, I don't think it's accidental.
button
'

that is soo weird ..I think eastwood is a little o.c.d.whatta guy ..makes ya wonder what is going on in that shell of his

That is extraordinairy Rach. ocd indeed. I think this is turning into one of those threads that proves fish have very high IQ.

I don't know about "smart" but this little guy is doing some kind of "matching" with the buttons. I remember the first time I put the buttons in, how he went from one button to another and then decided they belonged together and made his little pile. He even added to a pile that Brad had started. He knows they are the same thing, and they belong together in his mind. What baffles me is why would he choose to put one of each??

I rarely get to witness the button moving. He is like a little elf.. does all the work when no one is around to see. and once he has moved them, he may move one or two again and wreck his pattern completely. But then again... today he removed a blue button which left a bunch of red ones together. It will be interesting to see if he ends up with a pile of red and a pile of blue.

THat would be downright freaky. I will post it if he does, it may take a couple of days though, he only moves them when the mood hits him.


Edit: wouldn't it be a hoot if my Honey was the one moving the buttons when I'm not around just to mess with me??? I'd Kill him.

Well, I got a good head count on mini-fry today. I got all the way to 8!! living in the crevices makes them hard to see. I do count during feedings and this time I found a shell that has three in it!! hooray for babies.

All kinds of doings in the Shellie neighborhood today:

I did a gigantic water change and boiled up the new shells (that finally came) and washed a package of sand for the tank. I also increased the filtration and that has helped to lessen the mucky brown. the shells and sand make the tank look so much lighter and cleaner!

Mumsy and Rickey do not appreciate the increased flow, they have to do alot of fluttering to stay in place. And yes, Mumsy is shell sitting again!!! She gets so frisky when she has new water! I can just about guarantee new fry every time I do that. Here she is fanning fresh water into the shell she is tending: Mumsy

When I put the new shells in, I tried to create a small group of shells by the scallop shell to give a ready-made territory to either Bart or Pesky, but much to my surprise, they both ignored it and one end of it is being claimed by Eastwood. Pesky moved back to the edge of his parent's territory, and Bart moved back to Brad's group.

I had moved Brad's group closer to the side of the tank to make room for those shells and leave a little buffer zone for the new group. This has produced a problem for Brad. Unfortunately he can now see either me or himself a little too well and he has been downright huffy about it. He is not attacking anything and he has no tiny fry to take it out on, so he just swims up and down and stares. "You lookin' at me??" Huh?

Off to his right are numerous , new, clean unihabited shells. They are being ignored by everyone. It is unclear where Eastwood is drawing his borders. I deliberately put the shells right up next to Brad's group in the hopes that one of the girls would end up moving closer to Eastwood. Oh well I guess they will get moving sooner or later. There have been some small nippy fights between Angelina and Janet. They may want to spread out a bit. I am still unsure as to whether or not Bart is a boy... but I am sticking with boy. He and Pesky have been having some little fights too. He does not fight with Angelina or Janet.

Shellies of all ages will bicker about territory, even tiny little fry will nip as soon as they can. I saw a little fry liplock fight today but was too slow to get the camera going and missed it.

Speaking of Fry.....Pesky and the Triplets are on Mumsy's eviction list. She has been nipping and chasing them (Rickey too) so much that they have kinda gone underground and are living in the crevices, and since dirt rolls downhill.....they are evicting the tiny fry in the crevices and all of them have gone home to Mumsy for protection.

Here is a little video that shows how many have shown up at home. That shell was empty yesterday!! and there are still some hold-outs in the crevices!!! Yikes. Homefries
I wonder if they brought laundry.......

I just put 24 brand new shells in there and now I feel like I need to get 24 more!!!

O.K. it has been a while since I did a diagram.
With all the new shells, there has been some moving around. Most notably Eastwood who has taken a liking to the shells in front of the scallop shell. Rickey stubbornly claims one of them (just out of spite, I think) and Eastie seems to tolerate little Bart with no trouble. Brad did not contest Eastwood moving in, He seems happy with his little group and has made no attempt to expand. His girls now have a little distance between them and seem happy.
Nobody seems to want to live on that end of the tank and it may be time for me to consider buying a small canister filter for this tank. I am convinced that Eastwood moved because of the noise and disturbance the internal filter makes in his end. All the fish seem squeezed toward the other end, and it is getting very crowded there....

Mumsy and Rickey can barely move without bumping into a fry. Mumsy is trying to move the older ones out. I hope they go soon! there is a whole bunch of little ones to take their place as soon as they do.

The Diagram: click here

Green lines show territory (even little Bart has staked one out) You can see how ridiculous Rickey is being about that one shell.

The oldest fry are in yellow, the blue are the next to go and all the red numbers denote new fry. The numbers are true to the best of my knowledge. They move around alot, but I have seen these numbers consistently in these shells. Mumsy knows where they are too, she is always checking on them.
A little note about that: There are alot of sites out there that say the parents have nothing to do with the babies once they are eating on their own. Absolutely not true.

I have thought of moving the blue fry to Eastwood's old area just to see if they will establish themselves there or try to move back home. I am anxious to seperate them out from that group to make it easier for me to eventually remove them. As long as they stay there, there is always a possibility that smaller fry will be rooming with them, or will come to harm because of them.
I am also not very sure if Eastwood is still claiming any of his old shells. He doesn't go over there any more but that doesn't mean much, Shellies don't always use all of their shells.

thats a whole city and all that space wasted

Ha ha! I have thought about putting in terraces , but I have heard that the fish will always swim down to the lowest level. No condos for them I guess.

There is a trick to unshelling a shellie: Put a flower pot (or a glass or something) into the tank with a wire rack on the top with holes in it large enough for the fish to get through (like a wire cake cooling rack). Place the shell on the wire rack with the opening down and the shellie will swim out and immediately swim down. They will not go back up to find the shell they left. If there is a new shell on the bottom they will go into it. Their instinct is to hide where they can, so if there is no shell they will hide in whatever crevice they can find. Don't leave them there with no place to hide! they will stress out and die.

I'm learning so much here Rach. I notice the fluttering thing Mumsie is doing looks like what my tropical plec did over the eggs to get air circulating on them? Interesting. So many shells now, and I suppose you never know which will get taken or rejected for whatever reason. It's a lot of work but is so entertaining.

Yes, these little guys keep me busy and interested. I enjoy looking into the tank every day and seeing what has changed as the babies grow up to take their place in the community.

Things change so fast! I no more than got done making that diagram when a huge fight broke out in the tank and all the boys are now fighting over the scallop shell area. It was amusing to watch the little boys facing off against the big boys. Of course they were soon heading for safety as the big boys put them in their place.

Angelina and Janet were disturbed enough to get out of the way and now at last... they know that the new shells exist and have been examining them. The way they behaved shows me they are girls. Girls let the boys do most of the fighting. They are only really concerned when there is a fish actually in their area. Boys will go out to meet an enemy. That's why I think Bart and Pesky are boys.
Brad did some looking at the new shells too. I think he sees a way to expand his empire.

For now: Eastwood still rules the scallop shell.

There has been alot of jaw-popping going on (i think they are making noises at each other) and Rickey has actually responded to a jaw pop that Bart did. I think this is how they intimidate and challenge each other. ( Poor Bart wished he hadn't done that)

I am convinced that they are making noise and I actually tried to record some of it. I did get some noises, but I couldn't be sure if it was coming from the tank or somewhere outside of the tank. I am going to try again tomorrow.

What I did: I turned off the filter, light, and heater so there would be no interference, and I put the microphone inside a waterproof plastic bag and then I stuck it down inside the tank. I did get some squealing sounds that sounded like they may have been made up of clicks and i did hear some clicking by itself. But I also got alot noise from outside the tank like the gurgling of the other 2 tanks, and sounds of motorcycles and cars going by outside. The Microphone is sensitive and should pick something up, but I did have to turn the volume all the way up to hear anything at all.
Still, I would like to get that mike in there when they are quarrelling with each other, then I can make notes on the time that they do the jaw popping and see if there is any noise at that time when I play it back. Unfortunately, I can't listen while I record.

Should be interesting anyway.....

I got my wish.... they all started fighting again. When I left to do some errands, Eastwood had lost possession of the scallop shell (the front anyway) and was lurking behind it while Brad strutted around in the front. When I came home the shell was deserted and Bart was pretending he drove all the big boys away. I found Brad had moved poor Eastwood over to the very corner of the tank and appears to have taken all of his property from him. He is still holding him captive there in a standoff. (you can almost hear the theme song from "The Good, The Bad and THe Ugly" playing.)

Well Rickey is never one to let an opportunity slide and when Brad's back was turned he sneaked into his shell and looked around. He decided to claim the scallop shell too. So Brad had to go fight with him for the scallop shell and Eastwood managed to slip away into Brad's territory for a second or two before Brad came back and pinned him in the corner again.

A funny thing happened during all of this: the further Brad went into Eastwood's territory, Brad's entourage went too. First Janet, then slowly, slowly Angelina followed at last by Bart. Brad has made this one bold move and now commands half the tank. Eastwood has no place here now, and is just hovering without a shell, which is the fate of all unattached, extra males. Brad is enjoying the spoils of war: checking out all the shells, and looting.

Eastwood may have to be moved if he is unable to establish a place for himself. He must have a shell. If he is not safely sheltered by the time I go to bed, he will be taken out and given a temporary home in the water bucket until I can make other arrangements for him. This is a bad time for me to need to run another tank...I just took on a rescue fish who is using my extra space.

Well, during the big Bruhaha, I tried the recording again and I got the same noises.

The squealing sounds like someone dragging a needle across a record (the more mature of us know that sound ) and there are these thumping sounds like someone tapping the end of the microphone. These sounds occurred at the same time as each one of Eastwood's and Brad's encounters. I think they were made by Eastwood because on a couple of the really clear ones he was directly under the mike.

This time I had shut off absolutely everything in the room and shut the windows so less car noise could interfere. The squealing could be static I guess but I have no idea where it would be coming from. The thumps are a different story, what could they be? Eastwood never touched the mike, and I was absolutely still, trying to minimize any extra noise. ( the mike even picked up the water heater starting in the basement and the sound of my cat trotting by. )

I will figure out a way to post them, but I have to say that I had to turn my volume all the way up to be able to hear any of it. Not sure how to post something like that. I will also post a quick movie of what Brad is doing. What a bully.

poor eastwood he's my fav I hope he gets things established soon ,it feels like an episode of BigBrother and poor Eastwood is about to be evicted give Brad a kick in the behind Eastwood .if I was brad I would think that Ricky is the bigger threat ,Eastwood is always to busy sorting out his buttons to even have the time to chase women..or Brad is bitter that Eastwood was nervy enough to mess with his buttons when he had some ...my goodness this is turning into a real drama

Button Envy!! Sounds like a motive to me!

Brad is really too much! He is rubbing salt into poor Eastwood's wounds! He is going around into all of Eastwood's shells right in front of him! How cruel. Eastie is not allowed to have even the smallest, meanest , full of holes one. And Bart... let's not talk about him. He is Brad's little toady. The girls are catty too. Poor Eastwood is all tattered and his face is scratched up.

Here is a little video that shows how despicable he is being. Eastie is in the corner and he is preventing him from entering the big white shell that Brad is in front of.
Brad went into it himself. Bad Brad he isn't hurting him, just standing in the way. You can also see the girls right there, they moved with him.

Here is a short video of Rickey poppin his jaw, this is what I have been trying to record. Rickey Popping. (you can see Rickey's teeth!)

out of curiousity will things change iif you reaarange the shells again possibly giving eastwood a home ?...the videos are great poor eastwood in the corner and he looks bigger than Brad too

I thought of that myself. Right now the light is out and Eastwood ducked into his shell. We'll see if he still owns it in the morning. I've seen this happen before and the next day everything was back to normal. If not, I may rearrange Brad's world and put a strip of sand between two groups of shells and see if they will accept them as borders. They really can't patrol a big territory, it's better to give up a few shells than to have to defend them all the time. Or like Brad, to have to defend them on both sides.

I really don't want to move Eastie right now, There is hardly a spare plug anywhere in this house! I would rather buy a bigger tank and still have just the one.

and Heeeyyyy! yes! Eastwood is the biggest fish in the tank! He's just a lover not a fighter. Rickey, the only one with a breeding female, is the smallest, but he is cagey. Brad is the tank thug.
I have seen him fight with both fish at once and beat them both.

I am reminded of the Christmas fight when Brad fought with Eastwood for most of the day and then was attacked by Rickey when he was already exhausted. (see what I mean about Rickey being cagey?) He fought off Rickey but ended up in Mumsy's territory, and for a while I thought he was going to die. Mumsy pecked at him awful, but wouldn't let Rickey do it. She defended him, which was odd. ( I think she likes him, He's sooo tough.) But the next day he was back in his shell and didn't seem to lose any ground to anyone.

Tomorrow is another day......Eastie Beastie better get some rest!

Well, by dawn's early light, Eastwood was once again evicted from his shells and Brad had him pinned in the corner. The cruelest blow of all: Brad's little toady Bart was in possession of Eastwood's favorite shell. He did move out long enough for me to snatch it out of the tank, along with a few other choice shells that Eastwood likes.

They took all of his nice shells away from him and left him with one small cramped shell to hide in. Poor thing.. he can only go in it halfway and stayed there for quite a while with his butt hanging out. They have succeeded in driving him off. If he were in the wild, he would be looking for a new place on the edges of the community. Since he can't do that in the tank, I made the decision to move him.

Eastwood is now rewarded for all of his suffering with a new , clean tank with cozy white sand to dig in and all of his favorite shells to hide in. And of course.....His buttons. He was not happy at first because of the reflection Shellie, but I put a pleasant blue cloth around the tank. He feels more secure now and is in one of his favorite shells.

He will be happy here and someday will have some fry to keep him company. I have decided to use his tank to grow the fry out that I want to give to the LFS. I can't keep all of those fry and Eastwood is a Mellow Fellow, so he will be good company for them. Maybe I will let him keep a little girl...who knows?

The first thing I'M going to do is find him a tank-sized palm tree or two and a hammock.

awww I'm sooo happy for eastwood is this is what he is doing to brad now

Living well is the best revenge!

oh and you can't forget the tikki bar!!

I can't believe I just read through all of this, but it was great! I can't wait to hear more about your little fishies

thanks for reading! There's always something going on. It will be interesting to see if Brad can hold on to his numerous shells as the boys grow up. I don't know how long these little fish live, he may be getting old for all I know.
Hi-D
Oh yes! a Tiki bar with those exotic coconut shell drinks with the little flowers floating around in it. I can play some ukulele for him, and he can sort his buttons to Don Ho music while other shellies are doing crosswords. I'll get him a little girl with a grass skirt, and he will live happily ever after.

I'm happy for Eastwood. He was way to nice for his rough neighbourhood.

I really love this topic. This is the first soap opera that I ever liked

Don't forget the lei's and the poi!

DIRTY DEEDS!

I was sitting down watching t.v. and a motion out of the corner of my eye made me look at my shellies. Mumsy and Rickey were trying to kill one of their fry!! They had it away from the shells and were taking turns nipping it. The poor thing was so scared it was trying to get away by swimming into the glass. It ducked into a crevice, but Mumsy went in after it and chased it out again. Then She and Rickey drove the poor thing off to the back of the tank where it finally found a place to hide in between a shell and the glass.
The fry is still alive, somewhere. it is not hiding where I last saw it, but I have some doubt that this little one could survive such a beating. They were really hitting the poor thing hard! When he swam away, he was not swimming well. I think he is badly injured.

I do not know what could have sparked this reaction, but the whole tank seems aggressive tonight....and Mumsy, seems frisky. Could it be the little fry was in a shell that she wanted to lay eggs in? She is fanning her tail at Rickey and there is always a little aggression involved . I saw her rush one of the reflection Shellies. The other fry are lying low and trying to stay out of sight, even the larger ones.

Mumsy is popping her jaw and chattering her mouth, I would love to sneak the microphone in there. One thing I have noticed about the jaw popping is that it almost always results in another fish popping back. The whole tank seems to be on alert. Brad has been keeping an eye on that end of the tank.

I have noticed that what height a fish occupies in the tank seems to matter. It's as if there is a rule that reads: Small fish cannot go up higher than big fish. Whenever one of the small fish goes up too high (it's usually Bart) a big fish will come over and make them come down, sometimes by nipping them.

Bart is now in possession of the Scallop shell. Including the one shell that Rickey was claiming. Bart has found a way to have it all! First of all, he has Brad's protection. When he feels like taunting Rickey, he goes up too high or pops his jaw too much or makes some small aggressive display. Rickey will rush right over to take him on, and Brad will come too. the two males will face off for a second (Bart will be all puffed up and hiding under Brad), then everyone goes back to what he was doing. Bart will also go into Rickey's one shell and Rickey tolerates it because he's a fry.
I think Bart is in for a rude awakening somewhere down the line. He can get away with that stuff now because he is not a threat to anyone. But sooner or later he is going to learn the awful truth: Brad owns the scallop shell.

Here's what's going on with Eastwood: He has a honey! I took one of the smaller fry out and put her in his tank. I think he is in love . He left his nice cozy shell to go take another shell closer to her. She doesn't seem frightened or worried. I named her Daisy. She's so cute!
I wanted to take Minnie out but she has a fry rooming with her. So I took another one of the triplets instead. She had a dirty brown algae shell, I didn't want to put it in Eastwood's nice clean tank. Luckily, when she got a look at the nice new shells in her new tank, she abandoned it an moved into the new one. I was able to grab the ugly thing out, but it is probably too late and the tank will soon be brown.

ooh the little shmucks! Bitten and scorned by his/her own parents and all that jaw cracking and popping Eastwood and his girl are well out of that! Not so funny she chose a nice clean new shell, most girls would pick a new house over an old dirty one Now you'll have to report on the unfolding of twin TWO towns' happenings. I hope the shunned fry gets better and goes on to be mayor where he can set about imposing button/shell taxes and expanding and improving the family/social welfare system.

Poor fry. What will the shell dwellers do next.

Trinket: His first act as Mayor would be to declare a zero tolerance policy on child abuse (or fry abuse) and Mumsy and Rickey would go straight to jail.

I don't know if the poor thing lived or not. If it is dead somewhere, Mumsy will drag it out so it dosen't pollute their neighborhood. There is no evidence of a crime, so any lawyer could get them off on Habeas Corpus.

The only witness to the beating (Me) will swear that the fry was alive when last seen.

I have a feeling your tank is full of organized crime ..kinda like the sopranoes ..that is why I belive poor eastwood had to go into the witness protection program ...they had planned to whack him ..Brad is raising Bart to be his thug and to do all the dirty work .but eastwood knew too much ..but yes Bart will get in over his head he acts before he thinks ..I would like to see if mob life is cut out for him ...I wonder how long it will take Brad to realize that bart is trying to weasel his spot to the top of the family ..stay tuned ... ..........ok back to housework

MUMSY DEAREST. Fry abuse Mumsy tries to whack (i mean eat) a fry.
Here's what happened: I saw a commotion in the tank, and turned to see Mumsy harrassing another fry. (or maybe the same fry) this time I already had my camera out and aimed at the tank so I managed to get the thing turned on , but not before she gulped up the fry. (Mumsy is in the foreground.)
When the video begins, she actually has the fry in her mouth! then she spits it out and both she and Rickey try to chase it down until I tapped the glass.

Mumsy went back to her shell, and hovered there popping her jaw at me. ( you can see them both popping, they were soooo p.o.'d) you can see the little fry making for the crevice between two shells on the left.
The poor little fry escaped with it's life, but was hunted by Mumsy for a while afterward.Fry in hiding

We cannot judge Mumsy too harshly, Nature is red in tooth and claw and she had her reasons. Mumsy's shell these days
That little fry may have threatened the babies or even ate one. She is a very aggressive little guardian. She is one mean mama.

Of course now I have video evidence of their misdeeds It clearly shows that Rickey was an accomplice. They were caught red-finned!

the little victim is still alive... I did him a favor and turned the light off. Mumsy goes into her shell at night. Come the dawn, and all bets are off. hopefully he will find a good hiding spot.

Oh My, this is a violent story!

I was looking into the tank today and a little movement caught my eye! It was the little fry that Mumsy beat up! he moved aaalllll the way over to a spot past Brad! But just imagine my surprise when a second face peeked out at me the first fry too?? it's too funny! Little runaways It's funny that they chose to stay together in the same shell.

We will see how long they get to stay there. They are living dangerously in Brad's territory. It is not clear if Brad is aware of the little squatters, he is busy trying to take Rickey's shell away from him (the one next to the scallop shell) Or perhaps Bart is causing trouble over there to provide cover for their getaway. He knows what it's like to be unwanted.
Janet seems to know they are there, but she is keeping mum.
I will help them during their waterchange tomorrow, I just got a big shipment of shells to put in there. I will make sure there are plenty of them over there to create small places for them to hide in. One of them is hovering up a little too high and Brad is sure to see him!!

So, Mumsy and Rickey are off the hook.

There was an old Fishy who lived in a shoe..
She had so many Fry she didn't know what to do..
As hard as She'd beat 'em
She couldn't deplete 'em
Who could blame her for a nibble or two??

Poor Mumsy!

Rach, I read this whole topic last night and I was having fits of giggles!!

What silly, violent little fish!! Very dramatic!

I love how Eastwood sorted and stacked the buttons.

So what's the headcount now? I kinda lost track.

o.k. Fry census: first group born around Jan 1. 3 surviving: Bart, Angelina, Nancy

second group born around 3-20 4 surviving: Minnie, Pesky, Daisy (now with Eastwood) and an un-named fry.

Third group born some time in April: My best count is 13 None have names.

fourth group born around 6-1: My best count tonight is 5.

so 25 fry of various ages and 4 adults.

One of my little runaways is not showing himself tonight, I will keep an eye open for him.

I found him! he has his own shell. Unfortunately the other fry was not so lucky. Janet (who shall be known as Nancy from here on out since I don't call her Janet) drove the little fry out of his shell. I guess it belongs to her.

I am boiling some shells right now....

All the new shells are in the tank. They have all been very busy today exploring the insides.

Brad has noticed the fry in his area and has decided they are not worth bothering with. Nan/Jan thinks they should get lost, so she chased them further away. Much to my surprise there are now three runaways in that end of the tank. The small brown shell that held the smaller of the first two was taken over by this new fry who chased the small one out. The little guy is rooming with his original runaway companion.
The third fry must be the one who got the big smack-down last night. Mumsy is continuing her reign of terror on her small helpless offspring. Last night she pulled the "no wire hangers" routine on one of the fry, but instead of beating him with a hanger she used him AS the hanger and beat up a couple of shells that must have annoyed her. He made himself scarce.

There has also been a shake-up on the homefront: Two of the new babies moved out of the shell they were hatched in and moved in with that big bunch of fry in Rickey's shell. I found one of them this morning in another shell further away, i have not seen the second one. They must have got a good look at what they were in for later and decided to get the heck out of there. There are 3 babies still in the baby shell.

I have noticed something: When there are a bunch of fry in the shell, the big ones hog all the food and I think that is why I see such size differences beyond just the male and female. Some of the fry are significantly smaller. For a while I thought they were from eggs that hatched at a different time. That may still be true, buT I think it is more likely that they were lower in the pecking order. The big fry stay at the front of the shell and the smaller at the back. Less food gets through to them.

It's to a fry's advantage to live alone....so why don't they?? I am starting to think it' s a matter of how many fry can fit into a space. If that is true then I might not be doing them any favors by giving them a nice big shell to hide in. The more fry in a space, the more competition there is for the food and you end up with runts. Two or three fry in a shell would do better until they started to grow and then they would quarrel until someone moved out. They must quarrel less in a big space because they have been together for quite a while, and are just now beginning to break up.

I have counted as many as 11 fry in the big shell at one time. Now there is probably 6 or so regulars. The ones who got pushed out are the ones who have incurred the wrath of Mumsy. They are going into her baby shell, and the shells nearby. She really has it in for the fry that go into the baby shell! She must know what I am just now suspecting.....the big ones will get the baby's food! They are wary enough to stay out of reach of her jaws. She is always darting towards them as if to say : Sooner or later, you're gonna slip up and then I am pull you out and beat you silly.

I am trying to keep track of the little ones as they go out, so I can squirt some extra food in their direction.

They sure take a lot of watching after, don't they?

Yeah, they are busy. sooner or later I will be overwhelmed by their fry and I won't know who is who anymore. I only know who they are by the shells they live in and the areas they hang around in, and the little ones move around alot. I am not too sure that NanJan and Angelina are who I think... they could have switched places for all I know.
How am I going to name and keep track of 13 fry??? It will be fun trying.
I was thinking of buying some of those long picks that they use to pin sandwiches together and make little flags to stick in the sand next to their shells. or maybe tiny little mailboxes..
someday soon my little diagrams will look like a football play.

I see you have been visited by the Tank Fairy? Lucky you! Maybe the Tank Fairy will visit me and I can put all my unruly fry in it and let them sort themselves out.

everytime I see your diagrams ..I picture a war generel with a big pointy stick pointing out enemy grounds and uncharted territory .. sorta like the game of Risk

Penguin likes to play Risk and he's always trying to get me to play with him. It's like an ever-changing territory war--- a game of WORLD DOMINATION. Or at least tank domination.

What do they call the winner of risk? cuz Brad OWNS the tank!

His Royal Highness Sir General-in-Chief Bradly Shell Dweller.

thats great , much too lofty for him! He's more of the "Bada-Bing" type.

How 'bout "The Boss"?

Mumsy evicts more fry Fry Hunt

There is a little exile community of 5 fry down in the back of "Da Boss's" territory. I don't know how they manage to find each other, but they are all together.
Nan/Jan knows they're there, and is shaking them down . She is turning into a toady.

In fact, the two large fry who are left in Mumsy's area,( Pesky and unamed one) are getting very good at "Toadying" themselves. Rickey seems to have used them to hunt out the fry that were hiding in the small spaces that he cannot fit into. I must say they had no trouble doing it. They were gleefully threading themselves through all of the crevices and poking into all the nooks and crannies. they have taken their place in the community and are defending it against whatever theat Mumsy and Rickey Identify. I guess they are staying put, as no one has given them their eviction notice. Brad still doesn't like Pesky but will not attack the one I haven't named yet.

Da Boss went down and had a look at the little waifs, and he left them alone. He is always looking to expand his crime family, so I guess he will get them while they're young.

FRY GRAVEYARD FOUND

A fry was found dead in an isolated corner of the tank today. Investigators at the scene were shocked to find another body just a short distance away from the first.
The tank owner speculates that these fry may have been runaways that had been seen in the area; citing several evictions that were witnessed over the last week.
Police state that no immediate cause of death could be determined, but at least one of the deaths appeared to be suspicious. As of this time, police do not believe the two deaths to be related.

Based on witness testimony of beatings that occured just before the bodies were found, several Shellies were brought in for questioning but had to be released due to lack of evidence.
Two suspects have been identified: Rickey and Mumsy Shellie. The couple lived very close to the gravesite, and were seen abusing their fry on at least two occasions. Police claim to
have credible video evidence of both of the beatings, and are trying to determine the whereabouts of the pairs numerous children.

THe Coroner examined the smaller of the two victims and concluded that the smaller fry died from what she termed " A disproportionate perception of eye size relative to gastric capacity". She
pointed out that a very large adult brine shrimp had been ingested and could not be passed through the tiny fry's system. There was ample physical evidence to conclude: "Death by Misadventure".

THe Shellie community will not rest until the gill-ty parties are brought to justice.