He is ugly. He is a killer. And he is in my tank. I write this as a warning to my reefer friends. Take caution.
I am still new to reef-keeping. I am a fast learner and have been picking up quickly. My new 39 gallon reef tank is 8 months old now. It is doing VERY well and I am extremely happy with it. Corraline growing all over the place, yellow star polyps spreading to everything I frag it to. Home-made agrocrete cave rocks supplimenting my natural live rock in the tank is also growing coralline at good rates. It is pretty, simple, and easy to maintain. My kids love it as well.
Despite my great water chemistry, stable water, great growth, and obviously happy inhabitants something was amiss. Something terrible. Something deadly.
It started with "Larry". I didn't name the scooter blenny and I would be as upset as Larry likely was that my owner had allowed his three-year-old son to name me after a talking cucumber cartoon. Nevertheless he lived a happy, healthy life so I didn't feel so bad. That was till the morning I awoke to find Larry being devoured by my clean-up crew. This bothered me. Mostly because I was watching Larry the night before and he was active, healthy, and sucking up bits of sand and jetting them out of his gills like always.
But there he was. Dead.
Cinnamon, my clownfish (and I bet you can't guess what kind), and Sunflower my Yellow tang began their CSI investigation in earnst. After a few days of checking water quality, talking to the now-plump blue-legged hermit crabs and turbo snails, grilling the starfish, and fingerprinting the entire tank no clues were found.
I was beginning to wonder about some equipment of mine that was malfunctioning. Shortly after I made some changes to the tank my skimmer began to make a sound similar to that of a popular breakfast cereal. It didn't dawn on me at the time that the snaps, crackles, and pops were only coming at night... only that it was coming from the skimmer that sits right next to that new chunk of live rock I just got. I had heard about electrical current messing up the tank and causing damage to the more sensitive inhabitants. And since Larry had always been a softy I figured this *may* have something to do with it.
Alas, we had the funeral and sacrificed Larry to the great Porcelain goddess and went on with our lives.
Months went by. I was exstatic about my tank's inhabitants. I enjoyed watching the corraline spread... seeing the brain coral baby that came in on my tank. Seeing the variety of snails and critters that came in on the new rock. I saw tons of stuff growing on the new rocks that I was totally ignorant to. Little white things with antennaes that spread in the darkness of the underside of the rock, several fan worms on the rock itself, and some kind of crustaceon that lived in the rock itself and would feed from small holes in the rock by reaching out with a small arm and picking stuff off the rock. I also was amazed at the brutality of the crabs. These suckers were systematically killing and eating each other and some of the turbo snails in the tank. I even saw a couple of snail shells, lying empty under my new live rock, with major cracks and holes in their shells. The beasts!
Within a few months I was down three snails and three crabs. Then it happened. Sunflower died. It was odd... the crimescene was eerie. Sunflower had been very healthy and happy and swimming around just fine the day before. That morning there she was attached to the intake of the backpack biowheel filter with a massive hole in her flank. What bothered me about this was simple. There were no crabs, snails, or other perpitrators touching her cadaver. The crabs are ruthless... having remembered trying to remove Larry's body from the tank and having to pull of crabs from the corpse by hand outside of the tank I realized that there was no way that the crabs had gotten her. They would NEVER have let her float up there. Cinnamon was looking suspiscious... but he couldn't have done that kind of damage.
I was baffled. I went to my local fish store and talked through my water parameters, quality, equipment, and such. After we decided that we wouldn't be able to come to an understanding I jokingly said that Sunflower, having never gotten over the loss of her friend Larry, had likely commited Hari Kari on the stop of a rock trying to escape. I then began to describe some of the other critters in my tank and ask for identification. The LFS owner gladly talked to me about several of the things and praised the quality of my tank because of the propogation of the carribean red fan worms.
Then I mentioned the claw. He said, "ooooooooh" and groaned.
-- "What?"
"You dont by chance have a strange popping sound coming from your tank?"
--"Yes, some of my equipment is malfunctioning."
"Did that happen right after you put that new rock in?"
--"Uh... yes... why?"
"My friend, that is not your equipment. That is coming from inside your rock."
--"Ok, what are you talking about?"
"You have a Mantis Shrimp"
Now... I am still a novice and I had never heard of this. He went on to tell me about it and suggest I search for information. He also suggested something that was horrific to me. Get rid of the rock. Hell no! That thing is beautiful! I began to research.... and then it all began to come clear...
Larry.... Sunflower... the smashed snails... the crabs. They were all victims. As I began to read about these beasts. They are some mad scientists biological creation - a hybrid of a lobster and a preying mantis that is sadistically formed into the size of general shape of a shrimp so that you have to admit to your non-reefer friends that a "shrimp" is kicking your ass. <snort> No shrimp will beat me.
I tried a trap. Several of them in fact. No go. I used a flashlight with a red film cover to hunt for him. One night, a couple of weeks after identification, I saw his beady eyes staring at me over the top of the rock. There he was... looking at me... eye to eye. This Terrorist that has been brutally hunting everything in my tank. We stared at each other for a while till my finger slipped off the red film and I flashed him in the face. I felt a little releived and sadistically satisfied that it scared him and he retreated behind the rock.
The next morning I found that he had smashed a hole out from inside the rock on the back side of it. This terrorist was smart. He was a dedicated, patient killer with deadly tools at his disposal. He hides in his little hole and comes out only when you are not expecting it.
This requires drastic measures. I imagined myself at the helm of our country on the eve of the USS Cole bombing and making the decision to launch Patriot missiles at the Terrorist training camps to try to take out their base of operations. That was it! I had to eliminate his base of operations.
So I studied.
Last friday I brought home my equipment. A large bowl, several bottles of soda water, a turkey baster, and some salt. I filled the bowl with the carbonated (non-oxygenated) water and mixed in some salt. This created a small environment of 75 degree anoxyic salt water. I removed the little POS's home and put it into the water. From everything I had read I found that in no time flat the little sucker would come out crying... with his hands over his head. I sat and watched the rock with glee... waiting for his impending surrender.
It didn't come. That stubborn SOB! I decided then and there that this would not be a failed attempt. I would not allow my missiles to fall idly onto empty camps. After 20 minutes I removed the rock from the water... placed it on a towel on the floor... grabbed a hammer and chisel (Yes, I was cringing too) and smashed off a corner where I knew he had a hole. I couldn't beleive what I saw. There was an entire tunnel network running throughout the rock. The smooth walled passages went this way and that! This terrorist was living in a tunnel network!
Then it hit me. This beast has a name.
Osama has to die!
I used a turkey baster to shoot a jet of water into the tunnels I could see. Water shot out of the rock like a sprinkler. These tunnels were deep and I had no Bunker Busters. After another 10 minutes in the water I decided not to sacrifice innocent civilians in my efforts. I set up a 10 gallon tank, turned on the heater... and dropped the rock in. I sat down at my computer desk to do more research with the prison tank next to me. As I began to frantically look up information Osama staggered out of his hole and fluttered down to the bottom of the tank. This was it! I had him! I jumped up and he and I raced for the rock. For a brief moment I hesistated and wondered at the sensibiity of trusting my bare hand into the tank with this deranged killer. I sucked it up, screamed my battle cry, and took the plunge. "Remember the Blenny!". Larry would have been proud. I was faster (only because of his lack of oxygen) and lucky for me he missed with this attack at my hand. The rock was quickly transported back to my main tank and Osama was left to his lonesome in his prison where I can watch him.
Being a firm beleiver in non-human rights I placed another chunk of (non live) rock into the tank for him to cower in... and I've spent the last few days studying nad interrogating my prisoner. Today I am shipping him off to a concentration camp. My LFS wants to have him as a mascot. I've heard of Lions, tigers, panthers, bulls, renegades, and pirates all being used as mascots. But why would someone want something this fierce - this brutal - as a mascot? I'll never know. All I know is that my tank, and the world, is a safer place.
- Fuzzy Weasel
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Suzy wrote:
I agree... Great story! Now why can't I be lucky enough for the mantis in my tank to get rid of my Domino?
