Melodrama in a fish tank- NOW WITH 100% LEGAL FISH REPRODUCTION

[Chou Toshio]

That pond is awesome

[Morm]

wait til the japanese grass(???) and the other shit starts blooming in the shallows and the Hyacinth is going insane on the surface. It's so good that I catch dragonfly larvae in it and diving beetles swarm it. My dad has put a lot of money and effort into it, it's amazing. The largest fish is like 11 years old (the big female)!!

Thanks, I'll let him know a guy I have seen around on a pokemon forum with a tyranitar avatar likes his pond!!

edit: Jesus fuck, since Muscles descended to the bottom the newts, all three of them, have been losing their shit. I've even seen them strike at him. I think the shrimp that was lost was probably lost because it was in peril from a bad shed or they caught it while it was tagmatizing. I think they can smell this shit, they are going NUTS. CAMERA AT THE READY GUYS, LETS HOPE MUSCLES STEPS UP TO THE PLATE AND KNOCKS THESE FUCKERS OUT OF THE PARK.

HOLY FUCK MUSCLES JUST LOST HIS RIGHT GIANT ARM. I hope someone doesn't die tonight. Wow.

[Energy Storm]

He should be okay, seeing that Vamps don't use their big claws to feed (at least not that I know of).

[Morm]

I know, but it's depressing because they are WHY he's named muscles. He's taking too long to tagmatize, he might die overnight :(

edit: he's a FAST motherfucking, wow. By the time I could catch him he was so tired I could pick him up...and he honestly was still soft. 6+ hours and he can't deal, I might be shipping him off to my brothers shebunkin tank and replacing him with more ferdinands.

[Poppy]

IS MUSCLES OKAY =(???

[Morm]

he's in a tank by himself, my brother is a tool and might not take him as he's desperate to protect his 6 dollar shebunkin goldfish from a shrimp that cowers at all movement.

Edit: Nevermind. The rocks i put in his small tank fell overnight and crushed him as he was too soft to survive. If only he had actually tagmatized or perhaps if I hadn't moved the tank so I wouldn't kick it (it was beside my bed on the floor) and knock the rocks over! Man it's like all the stars and gods and anything else people ascribe to fate and whatever wanted muscles to die!

Subsequently, one of the ferdinands shed this morning as well. Not only did it go unnoticed, but he is quietly tagmatizing without any complications, the newts don't seem to care about the littler shrimp. I just realized that the colder temperatures is likely what fucked with his tagmatization...he could never hack it in here anyways, the other shrimp do far better. I just liked muscles cause he was my only muscley shrimp!

[Chou Toshio]

Originally Posted by Fat Morm

wait til the japanese grass(???) and the other shit starts blooming in the shallows and the Hyacinth is going insane on the surface. It's so good that I catch dragonfly larvae in it and diving beetles swarm it. My dad has put a lot of money and effort into it, it's amazing. The largest fish is like 11 years old (the big female)!!

Thanks, I'll let him know a guy I have seen around on a pokemon forum with a tyranitar avatar likes his pond!

Sounds very awesome. Be sure to bring photos :D

[VirtualKaraokeCircusAct]

:(
pauvre muscles.

[Poppy]

rip muscles. forgive me for being a nab, but what exactly does tagmatizing mean? i'm guessing it's something to do with a natural form of invertebrate cauterization?

[Morm]

uhhh invertebrates don't cauterize. Tagmatization means hardening of the cuticle (shell) after a shed.

[Poppy]

it was as good a guess as i could have made. did you kick the tank in your sleep or something? ;o

[Phadunk]

you have an amazing display there. enjoyed the PB videos.

[Morm]

Originally Posted by Fat Poppycock

it was as good a guess as i could have made. did you kick the tank in your sleep or something? ;o

when i moved the tank to avoid jarring it the rocks fell. Preventative measures fucked me over!

Thanks Phadunk

[Chubbs]

Hey Morm, what sort of aquarium glass would be needed to contain a Pistol and/or Mantis Shrimp? I have heard stories of Mantis Shrimps fucking the shit out of aquariums that have toughened glass in them and I was wondering if these stories are actually true.


Oh and my snake shed a few nights ago again and it had bits stuck on it afterwards, but it appeared to realize something was stuck to it because it went back around the vivarium and went through its own shed to clean itself. It was pretty cool.

[Morm]

The stories actually are true. I have no idea what kind of glass would be needed for a mantis shrimp. Pistol shrimp are bitches, they just make a gunshot like noise and run off, mantis shrimps give the flying elbow.

it went through its own shed? like how?

[Arcticblast]

Pistol shrimp create shockwaves that can actually shatter tough glass. They also create light with these waves. Without bioluminescence. Don't keep them.

[Morm]

Originally Posted by Fat wikipedia

The snapping shrimp competes with much larger animals like the Sperm Whale and Beluga Whale for the title of 'loudest animal in the sea'. The animal snaps a specialized claw shut to create a cavitation bubble that generates acoustic pressures of up to 80 kPa at a distance of 4 cm from the claw. As it extends out from the claw, the bubble reaches speeds of 60 miles per hour (97 km/h) and releases a sound reaching 218 decibels.[8] The pressure is strong enough to kill small fish.[9] It corresponds to a zero to peak pressure level of 218 decibels relative to one micropascal (dB re 1 μPa), equivalent to a zero to peak source level of 190 dB re 1 μPa at the standard reference distance of 1 m. Au and Banks measured peak to peak source levels between 185 and 190 dB re 1 μPa at 1 m, depending on the size of the claw.[10] Similar values are reported by Ferguson and Cleary.[11] The duration of the click is less than 1 millisecond.

The snap can also produce sonoluminescence from the collapsing cavitation bubble. As it collapses, the cavitation bubble reaches temperatures of over 5,000 K (4,700 °C).[12] In comparison, the surface temperature of the sun is estimated to be around 5,800 K (5,500 °C). The light is of lower intensity than the light produced by typical sonoluminescence and is not visible to the naked eye. It is most likely a by-product of the shock wave with no biological significance. However, it was the first known instance of an animal producing light by this effect. It has subsequently been discovered that another group of crustaceans, the mantis shrimp, contains species whose club-like forelimbs can strike so quickly and with such force as to induce sonoluminescent cavitation bubbles upon impact.[13]

The snapping is used for hunting (hence the alternative name "pistol shrimp"), as well as for communication. When feeding, the shrimp usually lies in an obscured spot, such as a burrow. The shrimp then extends its antennae outwards to determine if any fish are passing by. Once it feels movement, the shrimp inches out of its hiding place, pulls back its claw, and releases a "shot" which stuns the prey; the shrimp then pulls it to the burrow and feeds.

badass

[Poppy]

god damn i read about them a while back in a cracked article, but still, god damn

[Energy Storm]

I think acrylic with an extra sheet of plexiglass on the bottom of the tank (as most mantis shrimps are burrowers) can suffice. However, it depends on the shrimp: spearer mantis shrimps come nowhere close to even scratching the glass, and only larger speices of "clubber" mantis shrimp can crack aquarium glass, such as the peacock.

[Morm]

peacocks are the prettiest though :(

[Chubbs]

Originally Posted by Fat Morm

The stories actually are true. I have no idea what kind of glass would be needed for a mantis shrimp. Pistol shrimp are bitches, they just make a gunshot like noise and run off, mantis shrimps give the flying elbow.

it went through its own shed? like how?

It came out of the front of it's shed and then went around in a circle and went through the back end of the shed (it was having trouble shedding so it came off in one half and lot of it peeled) and out of the head end again, leaving it clean. I would post a vid but it happened when my phone wasn't on me.

[Morm]

I wonder if it was an intentional choice by the snake or if it just so happened to do it?

[Chubbs]

Originally Posted by Fat Morm

I wonder if it was an intentional choice by the snake or if it just so happened to do it?

It only did it once so I am guessing it was intentional. The snake also had quite a bit of shed on it which is not exactly an advantage due to risk of disease/making hunting harder, so the behavior might have evolved over the course of evolution. That and the snake had some shed on its nose that didn't come off properly and it was trying to clean that off too.

Also, this is the same snake whose eye didn't shed properly before (I mentioned it a couple pages back) and it's eye is now fine :D. The clouded scale must have come off when it shed.

[Morm]

I just can't see why it wouldn't rub against something with more substance to it instead of using the old shed again?

[Chubbs]

Originally Posted by Fat Morm

I just can't see why it wouldn't rub against something with more substance to it instead of using the old shed again?

It probably used the shed because it is the same dimensions as its body, resulting in all the substantial pieces of shed coming off almost instantly. I am also perplexed by it as well, as I have never seen a snake exhibit suck behavior before. I think that an experiment might be in order to try and determine whether it was using the shed deliberately because it was a shed or if it was simply looking for an object that it could use to clean itself.