I was reading different forums and I ran across this thread. It is a really good diary of an octopus and her eggs. Unfortunatly, he didn't have any sucess in raising the babies, but he has great pictures of the developing eggs. You have to register to read the thread, but it is a snap to register and is worth it to see these pictures.

http://seainthecity.com/smf/index.php?topic=864.0

delosa,
Thanks for the thread reference. It was interesting to see the difference between the large egged and small egg babies. Trapper's young looked like miniature versions of the mother and were similarly proportioned and not transparent. The little guys in the thread looked more like little squid or something from the deep water displays on the currently running Discovery channel Blue Planet series(we are rewatching those since we were gifted a better TV today - nice to have good friends that like high tech toys but don't have room for their older ones :grin:)

dwhatley

Did your octo's eggs turn dark like these did? I'm still waiting to see if my octo's eggs are fertile or not. I was hoping these pictures would give me an idea of what to look for in the eggs.

If your octopus laid fertile eggs, you will be able to see the octos inside when they get big enough.

This may seem a little strange but I never saw the first egg. We suspect she laid others somewhere else in the tank but the day I put the barnicals in the tank she move in and never let us see inside. We were not sure there were eggs at all until they hatched. We never saw the empty sacks or any sign of unhatched eggs because she continued to block the den for several weeks. Needless to say, we missed the whole development cycle.