Tank Journal Archive

[Kharn]

it's going to be different to the film I am creating currently (Rise of the Planet of the Stomatopods).... mostly because there will only be text running along the top and bottom of the screen (the stuff in BOLD with in the 'script'), whilst a few still pictures photoshopped randomly thrown in will help to pain the picture in peoples minds better, like a still image of 'Odonto' looking out of the 'stronghold in the reef', 'the Kraken' destroying the 'sand banks' or 'Makul impaling a small smasher/ holding 'Odontos' head high in the air, impaled on his spear. images like that should help.

More like an illustrated novel :D (that's the word I was looking for).

 

[Kharn]

EDIT: Having said that I do still plan to match up the music direct from the film to the images seen...a.k.a music in the film whilst Thror (Odonto) sits on his throne as he is approached by Thranduil (Leo) the music will match pic for scene etc. and battle music added for the parts appropriate. Sound plays a huge roll on mental stimulation and how things 'can be seen'...

 

[Kharn]

I progressed a bit last night in this new film remake, taking a break on the current :), I laid down the 'basics' or skeleton in my editor and by the looks of it, all up it'll be about 15mins long :) I basically just put in the words to match the music tone as the songs played after one another, it's effectively direct from the hobbit movie.

Having said this I am starting to have concerns about the creation of what I want to see for others to see...my current film (Rise of the Stomatopods) only features them replacing the apes in the film, so effectively they are still in the same scenes from the original movie...however with this new film, each picture (although more story telling then actual 'motion') starts from scratch on a blank canvas...I need to create the images the story tells I can't just replace the dwarves with the stomatopods and use the original movies background, it wouldn't fit simply because all I have described happens underwater on a reef :)...each picture being on the screen in it's lonesome describing the events the texts state and because they are on the screen for much longer then 1/2 a second the image details itself needs to be of higher quality for flaws will be seen more easily.

 

[Kharn]

Couple of pics :D

The Leviathan - L.maculata
Deception and Predation go hand in hand with this giant of the stomatopod world...by concealing its bulk it not only protects itself greatly but more importantly tells other hungry fish "Hey I am small come and have a go".....


Morgoth - L.sulcata
Having no pattern over the surface of his eyes makes this stomatopods eyes very eerie... for its
pseudopupils will watch, always 1 will be fixed at least....and when all align, it's time to get out of the way....
[Broken External Image]:[URL]http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3140/dsc1017k.jpg[/URL]


Sight beyond Sight...
What makes the stomatopod eye so unique without going into too much detail...

- Each eye acts independent to the other.
- Each eye is mounted on a stalk with great maneuverability.
- Each eye has 180degree vision (thus giving the animal complete 360degree vision 24/7).
- Each eye has Trinocular vision.
- Each eye has Monocular range finding.
- Each eye has a 12-channel color vision sensor system.
- Each eye has a 2-channel linear polarization visual system.
- Each eye has a line scan sampling arrangement that resembles satellite sensors.

Remember the old quote from the 'Sixth Sense' movie..."I see dead people"? Well if anything in this world truly can...it is the stomatopods.

More to come :D

 

[Kharn]

After 6 attempts at tempting Morgoth out in front of the camera for some High Speed recording...he finally gave in and swiftly took down his prey :) it was an awkward grab for him as I know he (along with all other spearers) prefer 'head shots' but the fish wouldn't turn to face him so eventually Morgoth just went for it...

More to come :D

 

[Kharn]

Odd things always happened within these stands, new strange creatures show themselves (then go missing likely consumed by a stomatopod), windows appear deep down in the depths of the spearer sand beds and then disappear as quickly as they appeared, waken up at night to the sound of a large smasher hitting the glass and sometimes...a second shot and an already recorded predation...

Something weird is at work within STAND C and it's not exactly 'polite'...but both The Leviathan & Morgoth have now been witnessed eating the tail only of their live prey and then releasing them still alive back into the water column...a rather dark nature of the creature to let the fish suffer slowly...



Take 2 coming up of Morgoth & this fish in High Speed o_O...

 

[Kharn]

Ok so...this is how it went down...lol

The fish was re-offered to Morgoth who had no interest in it so much as to at first have his eyes out watching the fish and camera and then slowly started to close up his burrow for a nights rest...not interested, so the fish already mortally wounded went to the next...ironically not the Leviathan (it's to easy for him...) so I gave it to the Juggernaut thinking he may be interested in some fish again but it would seem that he is to fat :X and by that I mean to slow...he showed interest but was trying to pounce on the fish waiting for opportune moments, I didn't have time to wait for the sake of the fish missing a portion of its body...so I removed it and offered it to...the Kraken.

Wwho showed me and the camera that a smasher stomatopod certainly can and will bring down dexterous fish...whilst this fish is mortally wounded the Kraken paid no heed to opportunism and shot straight at the fish from across the tank at great speeds and pounded it a few times upon meeting until finally he could wrap his greedy little maxilipeds around the fish to hold it and give it some serious 'ground n pound' typical wrestler style xD...once the kraken was capable of grappling with the fish, it was all over, some serious shots were laid down and the fish in return could only gasp and wiggle.

Took the smaller O.scyllarus some time to get the fish back into his den, which allowed me to capture a lot of the action on camera :D, vid to come, it's long as he sat outside for a good 10mins chasing for about 5mins then grappling and pounding before finally going into his den.

 

[Kharn]

What an evening of excitement in the Ultimate Multi Mantis System! Who'd of thought 1 fish could go so far :) first Morgoth has his fill, then the Juggernaut got some much needed exercise (phat ass -_-) and finally the Kraken who showed how fit he is, charged down the fish and brought it down.

I still believe that Minos is not ready for live food but was very tempted to offer the fish to him...maybe next time if there is a 3rd time o_O...here is a small teaser pic of what just happened between the Kraken & this fish, with the Kraken standing triumphant over his victim.



Vid to come :D

 

[Kharn]

Finally the video is ready it took longer then the others but I think it's good because you see so much of the Kraken outside the burrow with the fish.

Hope you enjoy and as always...more to come :D

 

[Kharn]

The Ultimate Multi Mantis System...is in deep mourning today ...

We lost an irreplaceable crew member and quite literally my first mate aboard the journey so far...

My dear friend, Wayne, passed away ... he and I were partners at arms in this endeavor of ours to make popular the often demonized stomatopods, without Wayne I am at a deep set back... without Wayne I simply would not be where I am today for the clear simple fact...Wayne built the stands the tanks sit upon, the idea of going vertical and stacking, the perfect and I mean utterly perfect craftsmanship of welding and the unflinching confidence in his own works strength and style.

For all our faults we all have our own demons and guardians and I am not talking "spiritual religion stuff, Wayne nor I do not believe in it", he did what none of us on here could do for the simple fact that we are all still here......he took his own life at the young age of 34, I do not know why...and as I said, we ALL have our own demons and guardians the only person that knows is you.

Such commitment he gave towards our cause that the only reason he didn't want to be made public during his course was his own choice and because of this I have no clear picture of him other then at work with STAND C welding where you can only see him in his welding gear accurately placing together STAND C.

The next video will be based around Wayne and what he has done for me, my stomatopods and general stomatopod publicity around the world to further remember him my next large spearer (they were his favorites and I still have 2 vacant spots for large spearers) will be called Wayne.

This is Wayne at work on STAND C due to his shy nature he didn't want to be captured and put online or actively play a part in the online side of things.


Rest in peace Wayne you might of gone early but through the sheer and clear growing publicity for the stomatopods Wayne will equally be remembered for his sheer dedication towards the stomatopods.

 

[rockerpeller]

My absolute condolenses @Kharn . Its definitely not an easy thing to take in when someone close to you passes away. Their absence is always felt for years to come, and for some of us, the only way we can make their presence and contributions well truly known is to carry on their lifes work.
My hat goes off for you. You're doing an awesome thing buddy.

 

[Kharn]

My absolute condolenses @Kharn . Its definitely not an easy thing to take in when someone close to you passes away. Their absence is always felt for years to come, and for some of us, the only way we can make their presence and contributions well truly known is to carry on their lifes work.
My hat goes off for you. You're doing an awesome thing buddy.

Thanks for your kind words, it is a sad day but life itself will not stop, if anything this sad event has given me more will to see the goal reached and achieved.

With that said here are a few pictures of 2 inhabitants that i haven't provided many pics of lately, let these pictures confirm that both Minnie & Maximus are well and thriving, their compartments use to be barren rock structures but now they wonder in lush green gardens of macro algae...

MINNIE - G.graphurus



MAXIMUS - G.graphurus



More to come as I am about to plop a fist sized crab in with none other then...The Juggernaut...:D

 

[Kharn]

Took a few pics of the Juggernaut (O.scyllarus)




Video inc (just had to charge the battery to the camera because it was really low...).

 

[Kharn]

A Few more pictures from this evening...the last large crab that I had within the live food tank seemed to of succumbed to something already I am not sure but I offered its carcass to the Juggernaut (O.scyllarus) who refused it so I broke of both claws and offered 1 each to Maximus & Minnie (G.graphurus) then gave the rest to the Kraken (O.scyllarus) if the legs are still attached after the Kraken is finished I will break them off and offer them to the small inhabitants of STAND A.


MINNIE (G.GRAPHURUS) - Here she is sneaking up on her crab claw at first sheer peers out from the entrance of her cavity and then she darts out the rear side of the rock and goes under it due to the large cave she has excavated beneath it, from here she shot forth towards the claw and swiftly collected it and disappeared beneath her rocky home.



MAXIMUS(G.GRAPHURUS) - The scent of crab meat on the waters sends this guy into a fearless frenzy he was much easier to catch on camera outside of his cavity due to his bold nature he slowly went forth and collected the claw whilst slowly returning to his cavity, I think he needs a bigger home...or longer home.




More to come as it happens :D

 

[Kharn]

Well my PC took a nose dive ='[ and my operating system became corrupted...effectively what my mate did to save me a lot has now blown back on me....he gave me a "free" copy of Windows 7 Pro & the latest version of Office (this was 1 & 1/2 yrs ago) as noted on the invoice I found through payment (there was no cost or mention of Windows or Office on the invoice indicating illegal copies) at the time I was greatful because those 2 programs are very expensive.....but I had NO CD keys.....

Essentially my PC was wiped and rebuilt with Win 7 Pro that I got from work with a CD key...

Thankfully I kind of premeditated this kind of thing happening mostly because I am not real good with computers...I purchased one of those external hard drives with 4TB of space and bought it a few weeks after getting the actual PC so I stored allllll my pics and vids (now over 400GB worth) onto that so NOTHING of value (footage) was lost! :D

However I did loose my Video Editor (Avid, which is crap anyway but works for what I need) and my Photoshop 5 Extended Edition...

This major crash effectively happened rite before I was about to do a major update in pics and vids....so I'll be uploading a whole bunch of stuff very soon now that I am back on track :D.

External Hard Drive already paid for itself !

 

[rockerpeller]

Great to hear you didn't lose any of those great pics and videos mate.

I'll need to pick your brains later as well. I need to identify the mantis @Synodontis kindly dropped off to me. Interesting lil bugger. Kept popping his eyes out of the makeshift den he has and watching me while I was working in the sump the other day. Also takes food from my fingers quite readily which is awesome as he was a little shy when he 1st showed up.

 

[Kharn]

Stomatopods and their intelligence cannot be dismissed as 'simple'...it's an interesting concept to be able to 'hand feed' the worlds most dominant apex predator...but the simple fact is there is an obvious acknowledgement between live food, dead food and food offered by hand....

I watched an interesting video of Dr. Caldwell who explicitly details this and the very common terminology "Do not bite the hand that feeds you" which can be taken into any context not just food itself....

In his series of videos he showed how a large spearer when offered live food would switch to predation mode, sit, wait, be opportunistic and sure enough the fish passed through a strike zone and was aggressively and dramatically taken by the spearer...in the next video detailing the same spearer at a later date he offered it dead food but this time he anchored it to the sand bed at the other end of the tank, the hungry spearer tasted the prawn meat in the water and rose significantly out of the burrow to see it, as soon as the spearer spotted the dead food, it swiftly launched out of the burrow scurried across the bottom of the tank, collected the dead food and shot back for its burrow, finally in the last video again the same spearer was shown but this time he was being hand fed at its burrow with particular attention around ensuring the food was offered within the strike zone...

For a while Dr. Caldwell just held the food within striking distance but the spearer was too nervous, eventually it slowly rose and instead of striking with it's spearing dactyls it gently grasped the dead food with it's maxillipeds (the smaller 'claws' surrounding the mouth) Dr. Caldwell released the food and the spearer slowly descended back into its burrow.

This is very amazing to witness because the animal is acknowledging that Dr.Caldwell is effectively its provider and in harming him could result in no food....this sort of 'test' has been done multiple times with the same results each time.

Another research area of interest is the ability to actually teach the stomatopods certain things, I read about this a while ago and am trying to find it again but the basis is that a Professor in Singapore actually taught his stomatopod subjects how to differentiate left hand and right hand...effectively if he rose his left hand the stomatopod would react to the expectation of food and if he rose his Right hand instead the stomatopod would not react, all the while the stomatopod cannot taste/smell/see the food offered.

Once I am comfortable enough with my spearers I'll give them a go, record hand feeding them (it's easier to capture on film the larger species and spearers are by far the better subject should something go wrong....just because they are far less aggressive, if I freaked out it would likely retract faster and duck down into its burrow out of sight...a large smasher is more likely to act like a Black Mamba and just strike repeatedly to make matters worse smashers are spearers too remember...but a spearer swings its dactyl at 5-10m/s whilst a smasher swings its dactyl at 20-30m/s far faster and far more powerful and a smasher will open its dactyl to create the spear if it realizes the target is of 'soft flesh').

 

[Kharn]

EVE - G.SMITHII
Here she is poking out of 1 of her cavity in the DIY PVC burrow, I really like how these turned out as they are really starting to hide themselves, when I had the PC fixer over (the tanks alone shocked him...the inhabitants within even more) but one thing I recall is him walking up and looking close at something then turning around and saying "Is that PVC those sandy rock things ?" which meant my plan had worked.

Here she is submitting a crab in the classic 'Stomatopod Choke Hold'...initially she repeatedly struck the crab until it just gave in, then she smothered it and took home her prize to munch on.


NICOLE - G.TERNATENSIS
Female fury...Nicole certainly has it I like to tease her with the camera as I approach she instantly starts to slowly open up and threaten me I step back and she retracts, step forward she open, back and forth we go until she signals she has had enough by staying in the threatening pose and lunging a little forward in defiance.


TINTIN - G.TERNATENSIS
Females might be fiery but this male certainly is aggressive and adventurous, I have seen him all around the tank although he does prefer the safety of his DIY PVC burrow, it doesn't take much for him to get angry and display in what ways he can, he is a fond 'charger' and will display threateningly then if I don't respond he will leap/charge forward a short distance in succession one after the other, very cute defiance with his tiny stature (the smallest stomatopod I have within a display setup).


ROCKY - G.GRAPHURUS
We all know him...we all know what he provides when given a chance to be in front of a camera and that is why Rocky is so liked by others, his fearsome and fearless reputation of going toe to toe with opponents rite in front of the camera are utterly amazing, this night was no different, this picture of him details how I planed the DIY PVC burrows all along with coral plateaus, the idea being to easily capture the stomatopod & coral in the same shot.


On the hunt, the taste of crab teases his senses, search and search there is no crab out there...it ducked into his burrow whilst he popped out...as Rocky confusingly turned around slowly to go back into his burrow, he noticed the crab and went for it with a dark and fierce desire, the battle swiftly came out into the open and he finally submitted the crab with a few well placed punches.


MEGATRON - G.CHIRAGRA
The leader of the 'Deceptopods'... has been quiet lately...being in the last compartment of the stand his tank not only has no DIY PVC burrow but it also has or is effectively half filled with live rock and the other half is split between a species container (holding Starscream G.falcatus) and a large clump of Macro Algae, so Megatron can literally disappear for long periods and his camo mixed with fearless nature make for a hard stomatopod to spot (he doesn't like to make threats he is either over confident or lazy, probably both).


MINNIE - G.GRAPHURUS
Still fiery Minnie sits at her cavity entrance and awaits, what she knows is coming...

...A phat juicy crab! With female fury she pummeled the crab into oblivion then dragged it's limping form back to her cavity to feast upon.


MAXIMUS - G.GRAPHURUS
Her husband was even more excited...ironic for an " ol' mantis " he may be old but he sure isn't slow or less powerful...he cracked the crab in the head with a punch that left the crab effectively motionless but twitching, a real looney toon experience.


MINOS - L.COLEMANI
He is getting there...slowly but surely Minos is slowly getting there, he is actively eating now but is yet to create a burrow, I still keep his compartment dark and the room temp as cold as I can (16degrees) but until I see him with a burrow like my other spearers I'm not 110% confident in his capabilities (specifically hunting / predation) mostly because he isn't confident because the burrow gives them confidence.


THE JUGGERNAUT - O.SCYLLARUS
The one that all must respect and I don't mean stomatopods alone...for if I were to pick the Juggernaut up it might very well be the last thing that hand ever does...a large and powerful individual he once again demonstrated this when pitted against another large crustacean...


THE LEVIATHAN - L.MACULATA
The iceberg, the thing that describes the sinking of the Titanic better then the massive boat sinking on that fateful day...the Leviathan is a deceptively large stomatopod, largest of them all, with only his eyes and antenna poking out of the sand this giant of giant stomatopods can easily breach the surface when going for a strike as he has done so repeatedly in the past sometimes sending the fish flying out of the tank or over the divider to "safety"...

 

[Priscacara]

Very sorry to hear about Wayne, I have had a couple of acquaintances a long time ago take their lives and still think of them at times, always the fun times so I guess they are never really gone completely.

 

[Kharn]

After a long grueling search I located the cover to my Video Editor software but more importantly....the Serial Number / CD Key which allows the whole thing to be used :D so I can now make videos again!