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Kharn
12/17/2011, 04:19 PM
G'day all :p

When I woke up in the morning the first thing I do is go to my tank and inspect it along with turn the lights on...during some coarse of the early morning, a murder struck down an inhabitant in my tank! Morgoth was hungry.....

I noticed it last night and REALLY toyed with the fish, when I feed my fish I turn all the pumps off and the FX5 off then feed them slowly to help ensure everyone eats all the feed they can....Morgoth has parked himself in the far right corner of the tank, with no flow in the tank during feeding the food will not move.

I opted to place food above Morgoth and the nervous fish would play the game of "Russian Roulette" with Morgoth...they would edge forward then dart back then edge forward, all the while Morgoth everytime they edge forward he comes out of his burrow a bit, only to go back down a bit as they back off a bit, to me that was a sign...

When the lights were out and all was quiet....Morgoth made his move....I didn't see or hear anything, typical of a spearer....all I found was the 1/2 eaten carcass of an Anthia ontop of his burrows entrance, as if e was WAITING for me to discard it for him.....

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/8746/murdere.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/murdere.png/)

Its entrails have been gutted and its rear half is gone...it also look he ate off part of the Anthias FACE!....There is nothing in my tank that can cause this damage, the Anthias eyes with the clean flesh and bright blood tell me it was recent (I was an apprentice fish monger:p) it doesn't take long for rot to set in and this Anthia looks "fresh".

This is the first time I have found evidence of a kill others are missing but completely missing....either he ate the whole fish or he has tucked it away in the sand within his burrow for later nibbling.....I think there is 1 Anthia left now LOL all the humbugs are still there.....

mndfreeze
12/17/2011, 08:13 PM
Hurray he ate!

Kharn
12/17/2011, 11:50 PM
Hurray he ate!

Well there is evidence of him eating I am positive he has picked off other fish in the tank too since there is only 1 Anthia left...no jumpers/dead in tank all just vanished this is the only time I have found remains....

Having said that I got more fish today =D 2 Chromii, 4 Rabbit Fish!

See how we go with these as well ;) strangely enough all humbugs are still alive and some were less then 1/2 the size of the Anthias...when I was in the store today the staff started to talk about what fish my mantis could take out...they said there was no way that it could take out an Anthia yet but then I showed them the pic of this Anthia along with telling them how some are missing...

I think some of them assumed that it is a smasher species since I only talk to a select few who work there but today it was like the whole staff... lol once the realized it was a huge spearer they understood and the lectures about safety came out -_-

mndfreeze
12/18/2011, 06:22 AM
I bet he gets them when they are SLEEPING.

Maybe humbugs are more skittish sleepers and therefore escape the claws of death?

Kharn
12/18/2011, 06:48 AM
I bet he gets them when they are SLEEPING.

Maybe humbugs are more skittish sleepers and therefore escape the claws of death?

I got a feeling he does as too! But he is either consuming them entirely or storing there half eaten corpses somewhere in the sand...since I got him I have only fed him twice both small slivers of prawn meat...so I assume he is hungry and he has to work for it now! :D

MantisO_o
12/18/2011, 11:40 AM
Nice :)

Kharn
12/18/2011, 05:21 PM
Nice :)

Such is life...or should I say death! :p