Freshwater aquarium keepers: “It’s a real pain in the ass keeping pH and algae levels manageable. I’ve got to do a lot of water-testing to make sure chemicals are stable and there’s no ammonia buildup. I’ve lost a few fish to poor nutrient cycling.”
Saltwater aquarium keepers: “Oh, same. Also some kind of larval xenomorph came in on a coral and picked off my fish and everyone in my apartment complex over the course of three days. I am now in hiding in Iowa. I think it’s tracking me.”
My ex has told me about how her uncle, a dentist, had a saltwater aquarium in his office. It had lovely colorful tropical fish and was doing very nicely until they put in a nice live rock.
The fish began to disappear. Not die, disappear. They’d come in in the morning and there would be fewer fish than they’d had the night before. They ruled out fish hiding because they weren’t reappearing. They kept restocking the fish, and they kept right on disappearing. Nobody could make any sense of it — was someone sneaking in after hours to steal fish?
Finally, determined to get to the bottom of this, my ex’s uncle decided to stay in the office and see if he could determine what was happening. And what he discovered was that the mantis shrimp that had been living in the live rock and hiding there during the day came out after hours to hunt and kill the fish and eat them.
O.O
The fact that the shrimp basically waited for cover of night and for everyone to be gone to carry out its ghastly crimes suggests this shrimp had a human-like notion of guilt and right and wrong and knew what it was doing was wrong but did it anyway because it craved murder
memeport 