Gung Ho seems to be doing just great, I was concerned that he wasn't eating properly, but I think that was only due to stress as he seems to be eating fine now.

Went to the Aquarium shop and got him some frozen blood-worms, those seem to be going over very well with both him and the guppies. It's very amusing to see the guppies after having eaten the blood-worms as their stomachs turn bright red.

Guppy babies are doing well, though the large mother guppy that hasn't had her babies yet seems to enjoy eating the occasional one. I'm not overly concerned.

I'm currently re-reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (very chic in the /. circles I suppose, but deservedly so) and have decided to name the pufferfish Gung Ho after Bobby Shaftoe the "Gung Ho" Marine.

I decided that he had been segregated long enough and released him into the main tank completely free this evening. He seems to be adjusting quite well and has definitely scoped out some prime hang-out spots and seems to have laid claim to the cave formed by a flat rock as his home. Just fed him some brine shrimp freshly thawed from the freezer, he didn't seem to be too interested, maybe still a little too stressed to eat properly, or he ate one of my guppies...which isn't a bad thing I suppose, quite healthy for him. Oh, just spotted the last guppy, they're still all there. What a fucking cliffhanger.

Notes on feeding:

-seems to prefer live food (gotta buy him some bloodworms)
-take great care when defrosting shrimp, allow it to thaw in water from the tank, then serve quickly, not even allowing it to sit out for more than 15 minutes...easy way to poison a beautiful fish
-don't re-use food after thawing, discard of left overs and make sure to clean anything left in the tank after ten minutes out.

Accidentally clicked the link to look at my journal and realized that it was utterly devoid of content. This is just not something that I want to have be. So, here we are in my journal, I think I'll make the topic my new fish as he was acquired this afternoon.

Thus far our friend remains nameless, he is a Spotted Puffer, native to brackish waters...brackish being a description of water of a medium saline content. Think of the swamps surrounding the mouth of a river moving into the ocean. These swamps are the breeding grounds of many species of fish, one of the more interesting of which is the puffer.

Our puffer friend will be taking semi-permanent residence in a twenty gallon aquarium currently occupied by five or six guppies which have been residing there thus far to cycle the tank. They're basically a hardy fish that can cause the cycles of bacteria and chemicals in the tank to begin and come to fruition and at $0.17 per I won't feel too badly if the puffer eats them, which is somewhat likely as he prefers live food. The puffer is currently residing in an isolation tank in which I am blending the water he came in with the water of the main tank. This process will probably take a while and is undergone to allow the puffer to acclimatize himself to the temperature and salt content of the water of the new tank.

Also added to the tank today is a good amount of java moss which I've arranged around the base of the Mangrove Tree, which is currently thriving in the tank, and along the length of a pointy piece of driftwood. I'm hoping that the moss will grow well as it is rumoured to be quite hardy, even in mildly saline conditions. I fixed the moss to the driftwood using a couple of pieces of thread and to the bottom by placing small rocks onto it. It will apparently attach itself fairly well within its first few weeks in the tank.

I may continue to write in here, not that I expect it to be of much interest to anyone other than myself. It may come in handy to me at some later date. So here it is, in all its glory, my aquarium journal.