[Octopus]: KaySoh - O. briareus

4 weeks - first signs of real interaction

KaySoh came all the way out of her den during dinner tonight for the first time. I wanted to reward the behavior so I gave her a small crab but that was likely a mistake as she disappeared (albeit slowly) and did not come back out for the rest of the meal. However, I sat at her tank later (after lights out as I do for a few minutes every night) and she came out and followed my finger on the glass as well as moved between the two tanks. She explored with me sitting in front of the tank for about 15 minutes. This is the first time we have seen her fully out from behind the LR and actively exploring. YEAH!

Looking at her mantle length and mentally trying to compare, I would say that she and Creepy are very close to the same age. Unlike Creepy, KaySoh appears to never have lost an arm (they all are equal thickness and very long).
 
... and today a little bit more

KaySoh was out tonight with the lights on at about our normal supper hour (that is to say if anything can be said to be normal in our house). Neal was able to get her to follow his finger on the glass a bit and I took a short video of her fully out at the front of the tank. She is still shy but we are making great progress this week.
 

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No interaction progress but KaySoh did decide she did not like the front den full of sand. She did not seem to mind my presence while she excavated but when she finished she went back to her current den in the far back.
 

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Why O. brieareus come to us with missing arms

This is the second day KaySoh found her crab in the shot glass. The first crab stayed in the glass two days before she discovered it and she was not as quick to retrieve it as in the video. We gave her a second crab and then her shrimp once she found the first crab.


The second day, as you can see, she was pretty agile with the glass so we are trying something a little more challenging. The current puzzle has a lid with a small hole (air line sized, too small to crawl through) and a lid that can be opened or removed. So far she has ignored it but tomorow is fast day so if she gets hungry she may decide to examine the container.
 
You can imagine what happens to their arms in a crab trap. The second container experiement was a flop, the crab died without the water circulation so I am trying a new jar today.
 
KaySoh continues to come out and watch us at our supper time. Two days ago I put a new container (third kind, second failed to get any interest and the crab died so I swapped it) in the tank with a crab. The jar has a simple one twist off cap with two hinged flaps. One side has holes to sprinkle out contents, the other opens half the top for pouring access. I opened the sprinkle side (hopefully allowing more fresh water and keeping the crab alive) the first day and KaySoh ignored it. The second day I opened the top on the side that allows pouring access and she investigated with an arm but failed to find the crab. Later we put her shrimp across the opening and she found the shrimp but not the crab. Tonight we put the shrimp IN the container with the crab and she took the bottle to the back wall and had it wedged upside down and empty for quite some time. Later she started reexamining the empty bottle and I took a video.


 
I loved the videos. Her arms look soooo long in the first video, wow. It was great of you to post these. She is lovely, I am jealous, this is the fun stuff most of us dream about. How often do you play this game with the live crab, couple times a week? every other day?
Of all the tanks I have seen, yours is the coolest, love the tubes connecting them, unique for sure.
 
At the momemt we are putting a live crab in the container daily to try to stimulate her activity. I am beginning to think that the far sightedness we saw exaggerated in SueNami is common or even typical of the briareus (SueNami's may have been excessive but watching Legs shrimp chasing videos on YouTube, I think not seeing things within an arms reach may be common).

Legs and Kalypso were/are more interactive than any of my three (two current) briareus but the night's still young with these two. My hummelincki's were much quicker to want human interaction and petting.

The tube tank was are real find. I had wanted a larger tank for the octos but finances have been dismal to worse the last few years. I kept a scan on eBay for something acrylic within 150 miles and eventually this popped up with a very low starting bid. Quite truthfully, I did not expect to purchase it for my $100 max bid but it was a pick-up only in an area that has little interest in aquariums. We used the original tank as a sump and converted it for saltwater compatibility.

When does your new guy arrive?
 
Another movie of KaySoh getting a crab out of the bottle with the blue lid. After this she lost interest but I may try it again this week to see if she remembers.
 

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I keep looking at all these videos and pictures of this really cool octo.I just got a 75g is that big enough for one? Even if it is it will probably be a year or two until i get one because i am setting it up for a pristine bimac tank. Just have to let it cycle now.
 
Most of the aquarium photos are taken after 6:00 PM with the tank lights on but not a lot of room photography light. My camera (Canon G9) does a good job in low light and with the aquarium and the videos are better than the uploaded conversions (which are not bad). My old camera just could not take decent shots of the tanks no matter what I did (I am not a good photographer). When Animal Mother was using this camera I noticed a huge difference in his photos and asked Santa to find one for me. It has an underwater setting that compensates well for the aquarium lighting but not so much for actual underwater shooting (I have only had it in the water once though). There is also an aquarium mode but the underwater setting brings out the colors and focuses the best for the tanks and the actinic lighting. The camera was discontinued just before we found one and I was really depressed when it broke last month. Fortunately Canon fixed it (being a gift it was purchased early but given at Xmas so they were good about warantying it). It has an odd problem with focus on occasion since it came back and will show strange lighting on the display screen sometimes so it is not 100% but I can't isolate the problems enough to report them and send it back again. Mostly, though, it gives me a least one good picture of anything I try to capture and I wouldn't give it up for the world.
 
Nuclear Brissle Worm

Has anyone else seen this phosphorescent effect(click to enlarge) before or does KaySoh have some very strange tankmates?
 

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Using Koralia as Grooming Aid

We have noticed several of our octopuses liked to station themselves on the koralias but this is the first time I saw a clue as to why. There are two videos that I am uploading to YouTube. In the first it is clear what she is doing if you look closely (both videos are taken of the reflection from the side of the tank , the Koralia is behind a rock). In the second video, I was able to get closer focus but she had stopped the aggressive scraping (but you can still see her kneading her suckers on the power head). Also note the growth of the "snow" as you watch.



I also got some video of KaySoh moving sand out from the back half of her tank. She has kept the main cave and linked front exit with a bare floor but now she has started moving more sand to the front. In the second of her steam shovel videos she decides that the area in front of the secondary den is to high and she lowers the terraine just in front of it. We thought she was actually going to move the sand to the other side but ultimately she piles it in a corner. It also appears as if she is sifting through the sand for Cyclop-eze (as noted in her bright red elimination) and copepods. The photo shows her sand blowing handiwork on both her and the mushroom.


 

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