I got my octopus this morning from saltwaterfish.com. He's pretty little. I dripped him for an hour and a half and now's he's movin' around my tank. He started flashing colors right when I put him in. Then after watching him for several minutes, I picked up the camera slowly and he changed dark brown and put his mantle up and pointy. They tricked me by putting a black bag around him; I thought he inked!

Pictures are dark so I need to make them lighter, but I will post some soon.

I believe Animal Mother's guess of O. Filosus, the Caribbean two-spot Octopus, is correct.

Welcome to your new octopus! :welcome:

I've added him to the List of Our Octopuses, and will update the list as soon as you think of a name.

Many of the octopuses ordered online are coming in quite small, just like yours. You need appropriately sized food and places to hide, which I assume you have.
He seems to be off to a good start.

Nancy

Thanks :)

Yeah I have Astrea and Mexican Turbo snails to feed him. I also have several hermits of various sizes and a couple emerald crabs. The light is off all day and I still find myself squinting to follow him around. I keep telling myself that he has to be hungry (because I want him to be) and whenever he goes by a snail I think "He's gonna get this one!", and of course he doesn't. Arm to arm, he's about the size my serpent star is arm to arm.

I believe Animal Mother's guess of O. Filosus, the Caribbean two-spot Octopus, is correct.

Told ya :razz:

Cool little guy, huh?

Mine hasn't touched any of the snails or hermits in her tank. Offer something by hand or on a stick and let it grab ahold.

Yeah he's definitely cool. Can't wait til the lights come on tomorrow. What have you fed yours? I was hoping I would be able to feed turbos.

Sorry about the quality. Our camera isn't very good and it was dark. Had to put ISO on 400 (max) which is why it's so grainy. I will get some better pictures tomorrow.

Acclimation.

Yeah he's definitely cool. Can't wait til the lights come on tomorrow. What have you fed yours? I was hoping I would be able to feed turbos.

So far mine's accepted thawed silversides and shrimp. If yours has a personality anything like mine, you should be able to hold some near it until it takes the food.

Shrimp from the store or krill? I have some krill but I can go buy table shrimp if that's what yours takes.

Yeah, frozen raw Tiger Shrimp. They come in bags of 50-60 for about $15. This last bag we bought has some monster shrimp in it. I only offer small pieces as she doesn't eat all of what she takes. I have other fish that eat the rest so it doesn't go to waste. I don't know how well the uneaten portion would keep after its thawed out so you might try to find frozen raw Popcorn Shrimp.

AWWWWW.....He's very cute...Don't panic if you don't see him eating the first day as he might be full from a meal before shipping. And I'm real glad to see you are not using the flash! Name yet?

Thanks. I'm not panicing I just am excited to watch him hunt. No, although I watched him almost the whole time I've been home today (in the dark lol), I still am going to wait until I can see him in the open for a little bit. Right now I think he's found his den and kicked out the serpent star that found it to be a nice home.

He tried to eat a turbo snail today. He couldn't break the snail open. He tried twice; the first time for about a minute and the second for 15 seconds. I think he got discouraged after that. Wouldn't go after any of the smaller stuff either. I bought him some frozen shrimp from Albertsons and put one in. I put it in his arms and he took it right away. Turned pale and ate it for 20-30 minutes. I thought it might be fun to watch so I waited until my brother and his girlfriend and some of her family came over to feed him. It was not fun to watch. He just sat there pale. When he was done he spat it out, immediately changed to his regular orange and purple/blue color and walked around. He seems to like the glass a lot. When he gets angry he turns dark black and white. I think I'm going to feed him every other day for now, unless he acts hungry.

Still no name yet. I contributed a few pictures of him to the gallery.

I am naming him Kaleidoscope. I'm sure most of you have seen my thread in octopus care about his eye. I hope this doesn't mean he is near the end of his life or that it will disable him at all or spread. So far he doesn't seem to act like he cares very much about it.

You take some great pictures by the way. 99% of mine come out blurry. They look good on the display screen, but not when I upload them to the PC.

Thanks. It might help out to shrink the size a little bit before you upload them to a site.

Thought I'd post an update on Kaleidoscope a just 2 weeks after getting him. His eyes are getting a lot better. First it was the right eye to glaze over, then several days later the left started to as well. The day after I noticed the left eye glazing over I bought some Gel Tek Tetracycline to treat him. I dumped about 1/3 of the bottle into the tank and started injecting his food with it. At one point he was fully blinded by the white glaze over his eyes. I got really worried about him! He probably went 3-4 days not being able to see before the right eye started showing signs of healing. Right now the right eye seem to be completely free (or at least 90%) of any damage. It's hard to tell exactly because he still keeps them tucked in to his mantle. His left eye is getting a lot better too. The film over that eye is now thin enough that I can see his eye through it.

I was feeding him once a day with the medicated food. he started to become reluctant to take the food and would run across the whole tank with me chasing after him trying to get him to eat until he would finally take it. He never ate very much of the shrimp either. I decided to put him back on the schedule I originally had for him; which was every other day feedings. Now that he should be able to manage catching his own food again he can eat a snail if he gets hungry on the off days. Today was the first day he went without me feeding him. He seemed fine. Hopefully this will encourage him to come out more and maybe start to display the colors and textures that he used to.

He still mainly sticks to the glass. Possibly right now more than before because he wasn't able to see very well. Today I saw him using some different routes than he has been using to get around the tank so this is a good sign that he is healing too. That's all I can think of for now.

Thanks for reading.

:fingerscrossed::octorun:

thanks for the update, :fingerscrossed: from me, too. Please keep us updated, since there's not that much information out there on treatments of disease in these animals. gjbarord's talk at TONMOcon2 was fascinating, but made me realize how much we really need a knowledge base of symptoms and treatment for these animals, so stories of what worked or didn't with enough details for others to try the same thing are immensely helpful!

Glad to hear there has been improvement! You're right to observe very carefully and the fact that he's taking different routes around the tank is encouraging!

Maybe food stuffed with tetracycline doesn't taste very good!

Yes, fingers crossed for your octo.

Nancy

Shipposhack,
I seem to remember that Trapper eventually started getting difficult to feed with the antibiotic stuffed shrimp and I quit guttloading it for the same reason. Hopefully he got enough to fight the infection without it coming back. Since Trap never showed signs of skin problems (my use was preventative) I can't say whether or not the treatment had any effect. I can say that it did no harm.

Kaleidoscope's eye problem hasn't really progressed for better or worse (noticeably, at least) since my last update. Both eyes still look the same to me. This could be because he hasn't been accepting food, so hasn't gotten medicated. Tonight he did finally accept a shrimp, after a small struggle of getting him to want it. I don't think it had much medicine in it by the time he got it though; I think most all of it dissolved in to the water. He turned super white while he was eating it. He was probably the whitest I have ever seen him since looking at him in the shipping bag.

Ever since he went completely blind up til now he hasn't been using his chromatophores very much. The only time I see him change color dramatically is when he is eating. Texture changes are extremely minimal. He still sticks to the glass the majority of the time but he will sometimes venture on to the rocks.

My favorite thing to watch him do is swim. He doesn't do this very often; I've probably seen him to it just a handful of times since I got him. Tonight he swam for me a little bit (I believe 3 very short times). It was still fun to watch though.

Before today he totally refused food since the last time I fed him (3 days ago). He wouldn't accept the frozen shrimp. Yesterday I tried giving him an emerald crab and he would have nothing to do with it. Maybe feeling full is a side effect of the medicine? :D

I think I'm going to start soaking the shrimp in Tetracycline again. That way it will absorb into the shrimp. I will keep injecting it too. I also might try to get him a new thing or two for his diet (maybe scallop if I can find a seafood market... Friday is my day off and I have nothing to do 8-)). I think this will make him more enthusiastic to eat as well if he has more of a variety.
I am going to attach some pictures of him. One is of him eating, 2 are of each of his eyes, and another is a full shot of him.

One sign of senescence in cephalopods is they lose the ability to change color as rapidly. Not eating is also a sign of senescence, as well as blindness or other eye changes. Is it possible that your animal is undergoing senescence?

It could be. Since he is a male he won't be laying eggs or anything to que off the end of his life. I believe he is supposed to get a good deal bigger though, but he could just be on the smaller side.

PS- I forgot to add in my update that he made a new (bigger) den a few days ago.

I came home from school today and Kaleidoscope was on a rock; he looked horrible. He was releasing his ink. I poked him with the net and he didn't move. I went and looked at my other tank and came back a few minutes later and he had moved. I poked him with the net again and he moved his arms a little. I came home from work and the serpent star was inching toward Kaleidoscope. I'm going to get another octo from my LFS within a week. I believe him to be Briareus. He's doing really good he's been there a while.

When an octopus dies suddenly like that, you need to thoroughly examine your tank, water parameters and anything else that could have contributed to his death. It seems hasty to immediately think of a replacement.

He was a male, which from what I have read means he won't show a lot of signs that he is near the end of his life. I did a water change Sunday, and replaced all the carbon. I plan to do another water change and make sure all the parameters are where they need to be before I put in a new octo. Sadly, I didn't look at him last night for more than a total of about 10 minutes, so I wouldn't know if he was acting different or not then. I did try and feed him yesterday though, and, as usual, he wouldn't accept. Also, sorry for the bad quality pictures this time, we didn't have our camera at home so the only way I could take pictures was with my phone.

Yes, it's possible he was at the end of his life.

Very sorry about your octopus. RIP Kaleidoscope :angelpus:

It's good that you're cleaning up your tank.

Nancy

sorry Shippo. RIP Kaleidoscope :angelpus:

I'll second Nancy's suggestion to check all the water params, too... you're likely right that it could have just been old age, but you can't know that it's safe for a new octo until you've checked...

:angelpus:Sorry to hear...

RIP Kaleidoscope.... :sad:

:( Sorry

Thanks everyone. I'm going to make sure the water is safe before I put in another.