It was a hot afternoon - mid 80's. The husband and I had slept in, enjoying the first day of the weekend. We decided it was time to get some chores done around the house - you know, vacuum, sweep and mop the kitchen floor, etc. But what we didn't expect to be on that list of chores was killing - killing a killer...
It all started around 12:45pm. We had eaten, brewed some joe, woken up best we could for a lazy Saturday. The night before, we had purchased a nifty little piece of rock for our salt water fishtank from the local pet shop. Cute thing it was, with brown and green zoanthids growin all over it. We knew we were taking home some new critters, but what we didn't know was that one of those critters wasn't so cute. One of those critters was an evil critter created to destroy...
I'm not an intellectual, I'm more of a street-smart kinda gal - a college drop-out lookin for more in life than textbooks and homework. So when the husband bought a salt water tank, I knew the only thing I'd be good for was tellin him what looked good, and what didn't. The chemistry and all that science stuff was on him. The best I ever did in chemistry, besides the kind between a man and a woman, was blowin up a gummy bear in high school (the teacher was impressed with the wide range in which the gummy bear goo landed).
So one day last week, while he's at work, I decide to peruse the internet, and see if my science-challenged brain could help out in other areas that weren't so scientific. I found a forum of other skirts and suits that liked this salt water tank hobby my husband and I had recently started. I'd come across a page that talked about "hitch hikers" in the tank, and what ones you did and didn't want. I thought to myself, "Alright, I'm good for reading and writing information down. Let's check this out." So I read through the list of goodies and badies, writing some stuff down here and there, taking a mental picture of these guys so maybe I can recall them in the future. If I'm good at anything, it's remembering what something bad looks like. When he came home, I tell him what I found out, and he's pleased at my initiative. We leave it at that, and continue on with our lives.
Well today, that initiative of mine came to the rescue. You see, in that list of badies is what is called the "Isopod." These are the nastiest of nasties - the worst if the worst, the one critter you don't ever want to see in your fish tank. This guy will attach to the fish and eat them alive, and if they're detached from the fish, they're very good at evasion. So you wanna get 'em when you see 'em, or your fish, even your corals and anemones, will be sayin hello to the porcelain god in a manner of days. And this critter, this demonic thing, reared its ugly head today on our newly acquired rock.
It all happened quick. I'm checkin out our new rock, admiring the colors of the zoanthids and watching a little crab poke its claw out of a hole. But next to this hole was something I didn't wanna see - something I never thought I'd have to see in my salt water fish tank keeper life - an isopod. I immediately alert the husband, who thinks it's just part of the rock, but I know better. I quickly run to the kitchen, grab a bowl we don't normally use, and he starts putting salt water into it so we can quarantine the rock with the offender attached. We fill the bowl, put the rock in, and take our business to the kitchen that had ample light.
My heart was racing as I tried to pry the devil off the rock with tweezers. The damn thing wouldn't budge - it's like it had armor on. But that wasn't gonna stop me from protecting my aquatic babies...So we moved to more drastic measures. I told the husband to get me a syringe - it was go time. He leaves and comes back with a needle (and in case you're wondering, we only have syringes in the house for these very purposes, not for any sort of "recreational" use, if you know what I mean). I grab the lemon juice out of the fridge, insert the needle, and suck out 10cc's of that yellow goodness. I carefully jab at the demon, finding it's one tender spot. The needle goes in, but I insert it only a little ways - if I were to go too far, I could ruin the lives of the zoanthids on the rest of the rock. I squeeze just a tad of lemon juice into the offender, enough to kill him, and wait. After ten seconds, I pry at the sucker again, and wouldn't you know? He detached right away, dead.
Now I'm not an egotistical kinda person, or someone that gloats about every little thing they done right, but this was a small victory for me. For the first time with this tank, I was able to do something useful, and save the lives of our other creatures. So this little victory is goin down in the books, and our salt water critters can live to swim another day...
A picture of the deceased when it was on the rock, highlighted in red:
And here's a image of the deceased after death by lethal injection (of lemon juice):
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