OH, NO, NOT THAT STORY AGAIN!

by Bill Pontin
First published in Wet Pet Gazette, Norwalk Aquarium Society
Aquarticles

We were newlyweds while I was stationed at the Newport Rhode Island Naval Base. In our living room, at our off-base apartment, I maintained a thirty gallon aquarium.

Coming off duty one day at the base, I found a very large puddle that was just plum full of mosquito larvae. Darn, it would be a good twenty minute drive to our apartment for a fish net, but the thought of all this free natural food for my pets got the best of me.

After an hour drive (return trip and traffic), I arrived back with the largest net I owned and a bucket. Thus armed, I proceeded to gather my quarry. Greed and maybe the ease in catching them suckers prompted me to catch every last one. Night fall saved a few in the puddle to propagate the species. On the ride home, something was amiss; the car had some adult mosquitoes bussing around. I was familiar with the life cycle of a mosquito, eggs to wriggler to pupa to adult, but that took a week or so. Noooooo problem, my pets would make short work of them.

On arrival home, I dumped the contents of the bucket through a net and thoroughly rinsed the huge wriggling mass under running water. I turned on the aquarium lights to wake my pets and, several minutes later, dumped in their feast.

My pets woke slowly, but it wasn't long before the zebras and tetras were darting through the hoards, devouring as they went. The angelfish devouring, the gourami devouring .... "great," I thought, enough food in here for possibly a week. Feeling proud of myself, for here was food with no waste, no spillage, and it didn't cost me a penny.

As fast as the feeding frenzy started, it stopped. My pets could not hold another piece of food. Getting ready for bed, I shut off the aquarium lights. The thought of them having all the food that they wanted for the next couple of days was reassuring and I was thinking of where I could find more when they ran out.

Something again was amiss. Continual buzzing in our bedroom woke the missus and I up. Turning on the lights, I found a few mosquitoes in the room. Suddenly, the light attracted what seemed like a swarm from the living room. Proceeding into the living room and turning on the lights, the sight made my skin crawl. For there on the walls, ceiling, and everywhere were MOSQUITOES. The heat in the aquarium apparently had accelerated their metabolism and they were hatching out of the tank at an alarming rate.

That night we slept with the front door and windows wide open. We sealed the floor crack to our bedroom door with towels.

It's taken years to live this story down. If I ever was to mention aquariums when the missus was around ...... "Ya, let me tell you about the time we were eaten alive ......"