This is so funny. I feed Shiny the small pellets because he can't fit the regular sized ones in his mouth, so I give him 4 in the morning and 4 at night. After I had him for a while he would flare at one or maybe two of his pellets before eating them, and he only did it once in a while. Now for the past week or so he flares at each one of them before he eats it every day. It's soooo funny and cute. This morning he flared at and ate two, but the third one I dropped in, he flared at it, then looked at it sideways like he was trying to intimidate it, and then he swam in circles around it while flaring. He did the same thing to the next one. It's so funny. He's never flares his fins when he flares, but he flares his face and shows his beard. It's so funny. It's really the only time he flares, besides at my finger every once in a while.