Im so nervous, theres hundreds floating around, skimmer is shut off just in time last night. What do I do!?!? What to feed?! Im gonna get some video, im in a panicky rush here, I hope some live.

I just bought some arctic pods from the only LFS near me that serves anything like pods, mysid, etc. I hope this can hold over a few.

Might try cyclops-eeze, zooplankton, marine snow maybe.

I tried the snow with both brine shrimp and baby seahorses and don't like it. It did not seem to feed anything and mucked up the water quality. Cyclop-eeze and Zooplex have much less effect on water quality and I know mine have eaten it because of the color of their poop.

I should go find some cyclopeeze tommorow then. Is it frozen cubes?

I should go find some cyclopeeze tommorow then. Is it frozen cubes?

No, I have seen it in two forms. The form you are most likely to find is a red foil pack (the other is a very large block). When I bought it this way I would use a potato peeler and scrape it into the tank (now I buy the large block and break it up with a hammer :twisted:)

I have it in a small canister. it is freeze dried powder. You just have to make sure you submerse your pinch or else it likes to float on top.

Ugh, I visited all stores and came up with nothign but wafer and flake forms. Should I try crushing the flakes? I also bought some dam expensive frozen oyster eggs...should I try these? If not I can feed it to my corals in the other tank.

Just curious... how big are the babies? And are they staying suspended? Have you had a chance to get a pic yet?

Well it's not the best footage, but it gives you an idea how the little guys + mom are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulP4x1_Y4B8

Octavarium,
Try finding the following arcticle:
"Rearing of Octopus vulgaris paralarvae: Present status, bottlenecks and trends"
as well as a search on Roger Villanueva
I have found several articles that have been helpful. My octopus has laid eggs and we are preparing for them. Your video was helpful. Keep us posted.
KDS

very very cool

Wow! So many. So tiny.

Im thinking a breed net tomm to concentrate the few left, and most importantly, turn the skimmer back on. This would help concentrate the feeding also.

Im thinking a breed net tomm to concentrate the few left.

Does this mean that most have died?

Did you try the oyster eggs? They certainly seem like an excellent idea.

Yeah im about cut in half, I did try the oyster eggs but there so dam small I cant even see them, there like a milky white cloud in the tank...Im worried that maybe they will sink or the area will be too big for the babies to come in contact with the eggs or food, which is why I would try the net.

From the pics, half is still a mess o' octos! I would definitely try a breeder net (largest you can find) with a power head blowing on it. I turned my power head off at night. This worked well for the first group but not the second. With the first batch I didn't think of putting the power head on the light timer until about 2 weeks after hatching and I think I should have waited that long with the second. The net definitely helped with food density. I keep wondering if their little gills are slower to develop and that water movement is important for more than just food bumping into them. You might try adding an air stone to one net for both water movement and higher CO2 release just to see if it makes any difference.

Well Im severly down this morning, were talking only 40 or so strong survivors. The skimmers is on, theyre in the breeder net where I fed oyster eggs and powdered cyclop eeze. After reading your post dwhately I put the air stone back also, god circulation now. I really hope I can get one to keep...I'd love to have the same species with a fresh 2 years ahead of it instead of all the hassel of ordering an unknown.

You'll be the first on Tonmo to do so and one of very few to accomplish raising any small egg octo but everyone is pulling for a success. I would give up my desire to convert the 140 for a vulgaris if I even thought I could raise Hummelincki. Four days and 40 octos is better than other reports.

Nice work. See if you can find the frozen cyclopeez, its better than the freeze dried. You can also hatch brine shrimp cysts which should be available at just about any LFS. Baby brine is a fine food, and might be the right size. The other thing you might try is live rotifers, www.rotifer.com (reed mariculture) sells live ones, and they may also be the right size. If you keep the octos alive for a while, reed mariculture sells a reef nutrition product called Tigger Pods which are live and should make a nice octo food.

Don't be down! You are doing a great job!

I agree with Richard about the frozen over the freeze dried (I don't like freeze dried anything). You can continue feeding Cyclop-eeze in addition to other foods through most of their lives. If you feed brine, it should be 12 hours or less old. Should you want to try that, I have found an excellent hatcher that works in 12 - 18 hours, is very simple to use and produces consistent hatchings. Brineshrimpdirect sells them (terrific people and good, clean eggs) and you can find it here:

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/c1/Hatchery-Dish-p183.html

If you decide to try it, PM me first.

D - what about the hatchery? I just ordered one. :grin:

These are absoultely the way to go! You will love it, I promise (especially if you have hatched in any other way). Hatch rates are excellent (except with decapped and my low hatch rates may have had more to do with my decapping). If you only ordered one - mistake - you need two. It takes about half the normal time to hatch but the collection cup is integral and you need to have a second batch started. I think I have a spare (I am not using them at the moment) so if you only ordered one, PM me.

If the area is cool, keep a warming light over the hatcher. I have also used a reptile heating pad underneath but the light works better and also brings the new hatch into the cup.

Thanks D!

I'll try the one and if I love it as much as you do, I'll get another!

The shells and brine are never mixed AS LONG AS YOU DON'T MOVE THE PLATE so be sure to leave it where you hatch until you rinse it. You can use your regular strength saltwater, no need to dilute. I hope you also ordered some of their eggs as they have great pricing and a can will last and continue to produce high yields for over a year as long as you refrigerate. There is a difference in brine eggs and I would not recommend getting them from your LFS as they have likely been on the wall for a very long time and the hatch rate will be miserable (at least in my experience - I kept successfully kep dwarf seahorses and attempted, without success, to raise a couple of batches of Erectus babies - lots and lots of brine). They usually send a complementary tube of eggs with any order.

if you are going to use rotifers you will need to enrich them, feed them so their stomachs are full when you feed them to the larvae.

From the articles I read, you probably need to enrich the brine as well.

New hatch brine does not eat but does have some nutrition for about 12 hours. The only "enrichment" can come from coating them. I personally don't care for any of the coating type enrichments as they scum the water surface and reduce the air exchange.

Well there are no babies left unfortunately. I tried my best, oyster eggs, baby brine,cyclop-eeze all failed. After resarching I found that saltwaterfish.com gets in mostly hummelinckis, so Im taking my chance with them and I just ordered one. I miss Octavius, and I hate the empty 29 now. No LFS in my area has got in an octopus since I got her in early February.

Sorry Octavarium. How many days did they make it? And did you ever observe anything resembling feeding behavior?

The last small group dissapeared the 4th day. I did notice the first day when I put in arctic pods, they were rather large (little bigger than babies mantels) but some babies grabbed onto it and jetted around with it for a while. With the much smaller food such as cyclop-eeze and oyster eggs, I never noticed any feeding like behavior. The 3rd day is when I put the remaining babies in a breeder net and turned on the skimmer. When they were fed oyster eggs the skimmer was left off for an hour and a half.