It's been a long time since I last mentioned the Saltwater Fish Tank of Horrors, and for good reason--nothing has been happening with it. Ever since the drama with the ghost crab, the domestic violence between the clown fish, and the tank itself exploding, not much has happened. I figured that it was the actual acrylic that made up the tank that was jinxed since the replacement tank has been pretty drama-free. Sure, there was the time that the Emerald Crab disappeared and I found him stuck in the filter system a few months later (alive and well), but other than that? Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Part of the lack of drama could certainly be attributed to the tank finally settling down from the initial set-up, and to the fact that I stopped paying attention to it. Short of cleaning it every couple of weeks, I wasn't doing much with it. The worms were tamed by a few carefully selected shrimp, but I hadn't even added any new fish in a very long time. Until a few weeks ago, that is.

We happened to wander into a local fish store, and the poopfaces just HAD to go and order two of the fish that I have always wanted. They had a Green Clown Goby and a Jawfish, and the prices were really low. Of course I had to buy them, even though it's ridiculously idiotic to go and add more fish when we have to move the tank in a month.

All was well. Alexis named the Green Clown Terminator (I can't make this stuff up) and the Jawfish was still trying to earn a name. Everybody was eating and happy and generally thriving. Was.

Today I figured I would give it a good cleaning and try to stack the rocks a little better. The Jawfish is a sand dweller and will bury itself in a little hole, only sticking its head out to look around. However, ours had taken to hiding in the rocks. I thought maybe if I made his beach a little bigger, he would amuse me with some shenanigans.

I started pulling the rocks out and carefully stacking them in a plastic storage tub. I hadn't actually taken inventory of where all the fish and shrimp were hiding because they always figure out what to do when I get all crazy with the aquarium cleaning. As I grabbed the largest rock and set it on the towel next to me, I heard a noise.

Flflflflflflflk.

I had no idea what it was and kept on cleaning.

Flflflflflflflk.

Then it dawned on me--there was a fish hiding inside one of the caves in the rock, and it was literally flopping around like a fish out of water. I quickly picked up the rock and stuck it back in the water, silently pleading with the fish to not go flopping out of the rock and on to the floor. Fortunately, I didn't even catch sight of who was flopping around all pissy.

When I finally finished the cleaning and restacking, I plugged in the pump. Nothing happened--the water remained calm. I tried scraping the pump's outlet and dislodged a little muck. Still, the water sat unmoving. I had no idea what the problem was, so I started dismantling the pieces. As I yanked one tube from another, I braced myself for a shower. The pump on that tank is pretty powerful, and I've had the pleasure of dancing in a salty rain when I accidentally bumped it off track once before.

Nothing happened.

Finally I reached down and pulled the entire pump out so I could try figuring out what was blocking the water flow.

And saw the problem.

Somehow, some way, the Jawfish had managed to squeeze through a very tiny opening and found its way into the small part of the tank that housed the pump. Even better, he had the genius idea to get really close to the inlet.

It wasn't pretty. The fish's head was turned all the way around so that the eyes were facing the same direction as the tail. And did you know that fish can get hickeys? Oh, he had a hickey. A big red circle made it real obvious that the fish had gotten stuck to the inlet, tried to fight away from it, but then died a real . . . uh . . . sucky death.

This had better not be a sign of things to come.