Has anyone heard of purposely causing an octopus to ink before shipping? I was talking to a collector today on the phone and he says he does that when shipping octopuses, so that way they wont be able to regenerate the ink and ink again while shipping, which could probably kill them. This sounded reasonable, but it just didn't sound right to purposefully cause an octopus to ink.
Has anyone heard of this? and does it actually work? is it bad for the octopus?

PS: sorry for starting so many threads, but everyday i come up with new questions and this is the only place were i get answers. Thanks

Can't say I've ever heard of such.

Don't be sorry for asking questions.

I heard of that five years ago but I don't think anyone much does that anymore.
(Or at least most don't - you seem to have found an exception). Making an octopus ink would be to stress it before it is shipped.

Nancy

Octopuses will store their ink and use however much they see fit to scare off a predator. I doubt this method is very effective because the octopus could still have some ink stored up and should be able to regain most/all of it's ink in the time it takes to ship. Also, I would think this would just influence the octopus to ink in the bag at the beginning of shipping; which would be worse than later.

Inking is not one of the primary concerns when shipping cephalopods. It is the ammonia build up that occurs as a result of the animal's high metabolic rate. That is what must be controlled.

I agree with Nancy that causing an octopus to ink before shipment will only place additional stress on the animal and is not warranted.

Greg

I have seen an O. rubescens ink five times within ten minutes. I have a feeling that rarely do they use the balance of their ink in a single, or even several inking events. I agree with those above that stress to the animal during the shipping would be a larger concern than inking. In fact, the two things I have found to be my largest concerns during shipping are temperature and oxygen. Ammonia is a concern as well, but in my experience ammonia will not kill O. rubescens nearly as quickly as those other two.

so, inking is definitely a bad idea, are there any methods to keep the ammonia low and oxygen high during shipping to increase th chances of keeping it alive?

Don't feed it the day before it is shipped; pack with pure O2.