Like.........

............ shooting (a) fish in a barrel.

This is home to The Devil Fish, which is pictured to the bottom right of the barrel.

He has no name; his name is legion.

The Devil Fish was bought 4 years ago to live indoors with Shooter the fairground goldfish. After a couple of weeks The Devil Fish had eaten nearly all poor Shooters fins off and was always bullying him.

I tried separating them by a mesh wall but when reunited the bullying resumed. We couldn't quite bring ourselves to euthanise (?) the evil one and so he was cast out into the barrel water feature in the garden. Thus left to fend for itself, it has survived these past years, if not thrived.

Shooter lived on in comfort for a year or so and died happily in his sleep.

It seems TDF survives on larvae and the odd snail that falls in.

The barrel has been moved and cleaned out, to allow the landscape gardener access to put a new fence up. We are also having some stone flagging done. This has been the catalyst to try and create a small pond with the barrel on one corner, to cascade into said pond. Hopefully this will house some other fish too.

It remains to be seen if 4 years in solitary confinement has taught TDF the error of his ways.

Being a bit of a softie, I have given TDF some cover in the now algae free water so he can hide from cats and birds (but not iPhones)