Un pez con algunos bichos.

Came home and saw that my cleaner shrimp had molted again.
It seems to do this once or twice a month, but this time it looked like it somehow slipped out of there without even leaving a hole, just like a fart.
The hermit crab (Zoidberg) and the cleaner shrimp (Shrump) shed their skin to grow. In the wild as well as in my tank, they will leave the exoskeleton out in plain sight to distract predators while in their weakened state. Indeed when I dropped the frozen brine shrimp in there last night, old Shrumpy stayed back behind the rocks, out of sight, instead of rushing out all over the tank to snag up the food before the fish did.
I took some pictures. I had to last night because by this morning, I (correctly) figured that the exoskeleton would be gone, eaten by Shrump in the night.
Crabs and shrimp will sneak back out and ingest their old protection to acquire the nutrients they need to regenerate new protection (science is awesome!!).


Shrimp but no Shrump


Zoidberg investigating the matter


Will the real Shrump please...hang on to the rock


Magneto overpowering a shell


Rotated 90 along the Z


Wrasse is too fast to get a clear shot




Magneto, housed in a glass and plastic prison for our safety


Took some more if you're interested.


Not into reef tanks? Check out this awesome video from The Black Keys:

Pro duct timid tea

Between work, class, term papers, operating system process scheduler simulations, and my charity work at Arkham Asylum, this has been a busy week.

I rose to the challenge.

I made a list on Saturday. It was long. All but three things are crossed off: call Swarovski about my girlfriend's earring repair (tried today but they are on E.T. time, so I will phone home tomorrow), create report for simulator program project (come on team...lil' help?), and open the Flip Ultra HD.

I put the Flip at the bottom because I knew it'd come packaged with an excess of distractions.

I accomplished enough this week to feel deserving of opening it and embracing those distractions, but just to rub it in the world's face (for being against me), I went to the gym after class tonight.

Now I had no excuse not to enjoy my purchase. The Flip Ultra HD is packaged nicely. Opening it reminded me of the sexy unboxing of Apple products...

But who the hell cares? Let's see some video!

This is the first vid I took with the device, so quality should improve as experience increases, but I was quite impressed.

Also: My charity work at Arkham is complete. It is a better place now.

Kerbatman!!!!11!!!1!1!!one!!11!1!!!2

Your diversions smell like fish, Scott.

I was working on a philosophy paper for professional business ethics (read: reading some bull shit so I can write some bull shit) when I realized I forgot to eat dinner. Pretty standard occurrence for the Slobscot, but I generally feed my fish while I eat or while I'm preparing my own food. (You have to train them to get on your timetable ya know? Show them who wears the pants.)

Oh yeah, I got some fish!

Nitrate problem is a thing of the past, still need to keep an eye on it, but the brother says that "fish are part of the nitrogen cycle".
And he knows how to fly a plane! So I do what he says.
The green star polyp soft coral I got a while back is opening up more and more, so maybe he's right...that ragamuffin.

So now - if I forget to eat it's more of a big deal because then I'll forget to feed the fish. The critters can live off of the algae and whatnot, but the swimmers need something...you know...for the effort...you know...

So I was reading about the moral questions of forcing certain income distributions in a society, looked up, and remembered they gotta eat!

Some may know, I'm working on bringing the economy all the way back by paying off all my debts and then buying cool stuff. Namely, a Flip Ultra HD Camera along with the underwater casing, and a tripod.

But - I'm not opening it until I finish my paper and program because it will cause lots of distractions for sure...whew...side-stepped that land mine...he said whilst blogging...doh!

So eventually, you will get some HD videos from the Slobscot, but for now, I just grabbed the good old Olympus for a quick vid, then to iMovie, then up to Vimeo...because fuck you Blogger, you can't host a video any better than my TI-83.

Massive Attack provides the soundtrack with "Two Rocks and a Cup of Water" from the Danny the Dog Soundtrack.

Check out 1:48 - ish. Zoidberg dominates one of the other hermits feasting on some brine shrimp, knocks him right off the rock and into the sand.

That hermit got totally Berged!!!

Also, the persistence of the snail had to be included (filmed elsewhen).

She won't let a pump and strong current deter her from reaching that brown algae!

Under and in.