Ok today i met with Tom and he personally handed me my new octopus. It is a briareus that will be named either McLovin if its a guy or Evelyn if its a girl. It is a little bigger than i expected, with about a 2 inch mantle, hopefully its not too old. It is currently acclimating and i will move it into a critter keeper, inside its new aquarium soon. I will post pictures in a bit.

Heh, Superbad?

Mclovin:sly:thats great.

yea, i loved that movie. Right now it is about to finish acclimating and it has a spikey look with some reddish spots. It looks really interesting.

my briareus doent get that spikey look.Not very often anyway.Its a shame Ilove that look.

ok here are some pics.

I'm new here but why put him or her in the critter keeper first? (Nice pictures)

so it gets used to me before i let him free. That way it knows i bring the food and it wont hide for a week before deciding im safe. Welcome to TONMO!

A two inch mantle for a briareus is not that old. It's mantle can be almost 5 inches long as an adult.

Congratulations on your new octopus, whatever its name may be!

Nancy

:welcome: both to the new octopus, and new user Redoc!

Congrats. Briareus are one of my favorite species.

Monty, your Geek is showing

I was referring welcoming a new forum member as:
both to the new octopus, and new user Redoc

:welcome::octopus:

Monty, your Geek is showing

Although that's certainly not unusual, I can't take geek credit on this; I was really just welcoming and didn't realize the Redoc cryptography tie-in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDOC) so I think in this case, you've out-geeked me, D! :notworth:

I just noticed that McLovin (im going to call him/her that for now until i am sure of the sex) has a weird brown spot on one of his arms. It seems to bulge out a little bit, but he seems fine other than that, is there anything i should be worried about? I will try to get pictures later.

Ok im starting to get worried about my new octo. Now it moves in a way that almost seems as if it had hiccups. About every three to five seconds it "hiccups" and i can't figure out why. I just fed it a piece of scallop which he instantly took, and now he is eating it but upside down, partially resting on his head, or so it seems.. I had never seen this in my other octo, is this normal?

can you get a picture... and maybe a video of the "hiccups"

I think you are talking about a "bobbing" motion, kinda like its "nods". I think all the octos I've kept have done this. Not sure what the purpose is, but I think it's pretty normal. My little briareus likes hanging out upside down underneath a rock in the kritter keeper, kinda squished between the bottom of the keeper and the rock.

Pictures of the brown spot will help.

No, my other would do the bobbing motion, but this more of a violent flinching. I just went to check on him and he was completely laying on his head while flinching and he had the curly cue look. I felt this wasn't good at all so i decided to let him loose in the tank, the only problem is that the divider in the tank is not completely finished yet, so hopefully Fecha will be smart and stay one of her many dens and lay low for a bit, while i get the last parts that i need in the mail. I know it was risky but McLovin didnt seem like he was doing good at all, but now that i released him he is not laying on his head and his arms are stretched out, although he is still doing the flinching thing.

here is a pic of the weird thing on his arm, it is actually more blue colored than brown.

Turn out the lights and make it as dark as possible in the room and leave it alone for a while.

yea thats what i have been doing since i brought him home yesterday, although today i turned on the light on my nano reef which hopefully doesn't bother him too much.

has he been using the end of that arm at all?

I cant really tell, since he's in the dark now, but from what i remember it wasn't limp, and i think he used it just like any other. My fear is that it's an infection that will spread elsewhere.

i dont know if its possible, but almost looks like a bruise.

ha i don't know if thats possible either, it does bulge out though, almost like a small ball in his arm.

swelling?? that would go along with a bruise

I hope he's alright.

I just checked on him and he is on a rock half exposed. He seems to be doing a lot better, the only thing is that he still hiccups, but besides that he seems perfectly fine. I'm starting to wonder if this is just a tick, because i remember him doing it when i was acclimating him also, but i thought it was just stress.

Ok both octopuses are out right now, and they seem to be keeping to themselves. McLovin has been exploring the tank in a very cautious manner while Fecha came up to the top of the tank as she usually does. She happily took a piece of scallop, but McLovin didn't want to and pushed it away. He is probably still full since i fed him a few hours ago. I am just trying to keep them both as full as possible so they wont feel there is a need to compete with each other for food.

Ok today in the morning McLovin was out still exploring the tank, and just after lights out he came back out again, and is moving around on the glass. Earlier today i fed him a piece of scallop but he only ate a small piece. I am going to try to get it some live shrimp tomorrow, which hopefully he is quick enough to catch. I will get more pictures of him in a few days so that he wont be as scared of the flash. Hopefully he is out in the day and i wont have to use flash.

Ok bad news. Fecha and McLovin fought today. Although McLovin is much bigger it seems Fecha started the fight. She grabbed him and wrapped herself around him. I was able to separate them by getting her off with a feeding stick i had on hand. I tried to catch Fecha to put her in a 12 gallon tank i have, while i finish the dividers, but whenever she realized the critter keeper (what i was using to catch her) she would freak out and once she inked, though i cleaned it up promptly. I ended up making a makeshift divider using window screening, hopefully it holds up for the night. Tomorrow i will definitely finish the real dividers. This was a big mistake on my part, but i still feel that McLovin would not have lived if i left him in the critter keeper initially.

I think McLovin doesn't have much time left. For the past two or three days he has stayed inside the same rock, and not budged from there. I have to place his food directly outside the rock so he can grab it and pull it in. This makes me think that McLovin is actually a senescent female, making it very possible that she has laid eggs. I haven't seen any eggs but it does seem that she covering something up .

Could a reaction to the attack and presence of the other octopus.

that might be it, but i have divided the tank, and if anything i would feel like McLovin would win a battle between the two since he is substantially bigger. He came out twice the day after the fight, and once it even seemed like he was searching the rocks for Fecha (he hadn't realized she wasn't on his side of the tank), so i don't think he is intimidated.

does that mean you finished the "real" divider?

It does seem possible that being able to "smell" the other octo could stress out one or both of them, perhaps.

As usual, when octos seem sick or sluggish, it's also a good idea to check the water quality: maybe 2 octopuses is putting a much bigger load on your filtration or has started a mini-cycle, and it would be a good idea to make sure about that and maybe see if water changes improve things at all.

Fecha was in the tank first so it is "her" territory. This could be stressing out your new octopus.

well water quality seems fine except nitrates are a bit high at 40ppm but i wouldn't think this would be the cause. I don't think that Fecha is stressing him out since as mentioned above the day after the attack McLovin came out and was hanging out on the glass, he also messed around with my cleaning magnet a bit, and he searched the rocks. Are there any other possible causes?

Nitrates are worrisome if they're over 20ppm, a water change would probably be a good idea... maybe McLovin is more sensitive to nitrates than Fetcha for some reason.

McLovin came out last night at around 11:30 pm, but only for about 20 minutes. Today i did some water changes anyways, and got the nitrates down to about 15 ppm...

McLovin is what i named my female peacock mantis. She is old enough to party!! chicka chicka yeah chicka yeah!
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff10/TheCraig2007/mclovinID.jpg

I have often thought about setting up a small tank for a mantis (Roy's fault, of course) but have not quite taken the bait. She is a beauty.

thanks! They are one of the coolest creatures i have ever kept! Amazing architects,crazy hunters, and extremely intelligent! You would not be dissapointed once Roy finally gets the best of you! Mine is really funny...i swer it has OCD! haha

I have often thought about setting up a small tank for a mantis (Roy's fault, of course) but have not quite taken the bait. She is a beauty.

Anybody know of a good way to trap one? I'm pretty sure there's one in our 60 gallon seahorse tank. Never seen it, but I've heard it enough to believe that's what it is. Sometimes 2 or 3 snaps, sometimes more. Very rarely just one.

well they tend to stick to the same den so if you can locate it then removing the rock that it hides in is the best bet. So in a sense use its den as the trap. If it has a burrow in the sand then you may have to just break the tank down or get lucky.

You sure it isnt a pistol shrimp??

Not positive, could be a pistol shrimp.

Can't break the tank down, sponge on everything so that could be catastrophic. And the main rock is about 30lbs and has lots of large corals growing on.

Sooooooo since we're in this thread... what happened to this 'pus?

I remember reading about this trap (see quick, sloppy recreation), but I can't remember if it was for mantis shrimp or something else.

You cut the top half off of a 2 liter soda bottle, then turn it around and shove it into the bottom half the wrong way out. put some mantis shrimp food inside, place the bottle near to where you think the shrimp is, and voila a homemade mantis shrimp trap.

Yeah, I've made those traps before to catch fish. Unfortunately there's a lot of potential food that wouldn't be bait.