Well my octo came today, and I just finished 3 hours of acclimating. It is being named Octavius II, to continue the legacy of hummelinckis reigning supreme. Saltwaterfish.com was nice enough (Kim) to give me pictures of the only different species besides the briaerus they have, and she got an excellent picture showing the orange ocelli, so I said go ahead and ship.

Here are the 2 pictures she sent me
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/octo1.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/octo2.jpg


Upon opening the box,styrofom top, and all other wrappings...I was completely horrified. The water was pitch black, it had inked itself to death.
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/094.jpg

Little did I know, it was just something on the plastic itself to block light. My heart jumped back into the pericardial cavity where it belonged.

Here Octavius II is acclimating
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/091-1.jpg

As of now the lights are off and it is already making a nice den in the LR, I'll have more pictures later when the lights are off.

:welcome: Octavius II !

:welcome: Nice one!

:welcome: continue the Octavius' legacy.

Welcome to Octavius II!

Nancy

Fantastic! Great that they sent you a pic and worked with you. I noticed a couple of days ago they started listing their octos as O. briareus instead of Octopus sp.

? i just thought of something. how do you acclimate octos? im used to setting a bag of water with a fish in the tank it till the temp is the same then letting the fish out. all the pictures ive seen of octos acclimating are taken in buckets or styrofoam boxes. am i missin somethin here?

-Keith

It's called the "drip" method. Empty the contents of the bag into a bucket. Use airline tubing to draw water out of the tank into the bucket. Tie a knot in the tubing so you can squeeze it and adjust it so that it's dripping about 2 or 3 drops a second. It slowly introduces your tanks water into the water the creature is already acclimated to so it can acclimate to your tank water without any shock.

Sometimes just acclimating to temperature is fine and in some cases probably better. Most of the time the drip method is the way to go though.

ah. cool. thanks.

Fantastic! Great that they sent you a pic and worked with you. I noticed a couple of days ago they started listing their octos as O. briareus instead of Octopus sp.

Yeah she said this was the only different octo they had from the others, all the rest were definitely the "
carribean reef octopus". So I assume all they have left truly are briaerus.

? i just thought of something. how do you acclimate octos? im used to setting a bag of water with a fish in the tank it till the temp is the same then letting the fish out. all the pictures ive seen of octos acclimating are taken in buckets or styrofoam boxes. am i missin somethin here?

-Keith


I think the drip method is best when dealing with saltwater fish, because the SG difference that exists can shock them, and just floating a bag wont transfer any salt through, just temp. Its being on the safe side, but for freshwater fish I just float a bag and release as you said.

The other reason you don't want to float the bag is that in doing so you are contaminating your tank with anything that is on the outside of the bag.

good point esquid. didnt consider that.

He's very nice looking. I can see the eye spots. Did they give you any idea on species?

They didnt, but I know its a hummelincki like my last octo. It's exactly what I was looking for.

I'm quite surprised of the quality of the pictures they sent you. How big he/she?

Almost as big as my original Octavius right before death, mantle isnt as big and arms aren't as long (arm to arm fully stretched is probably 10 inches or less). This is unfortunate however, that it is probably in its latter stages in life. But I'll be more than happy to get a good month or more out of it. Today is the second day it took scallops right from a feeding stick. Crawling all over the glass and not afraid to touch my hands out of water. Its amazing how interactive this species is, especially only a few hours after a stressful trip. Here it is right after taking the scallop from the stick.http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/002.jpg

Today was live food ver. 1.0. I saw some live fiddlers when picking up neon tetras for my other tank, and decided to throw one in. It took him a while to notice, but I got a nice shot of him jumping off the glass before he jetted to get it.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/129.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/007.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/008.jpg

Then he gave a nice close up of what happens to misbehaved crabs before he squished into his den.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/017.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/019.jpg

Very similar to my last hummelincki, he's usually always out during the day and on the glass. He isnt too fond of charging towards my hand or feeding skewer yet, but that may change soon enough. Lebowski was even on the premises today to make sure the operations went smoothly.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h35/AcidPuppy/034.jpg

Octavarium,
You blew it. The first shot was a good candidate for the, Find the Ceph in the Photo (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13722) game.

Has either Octavius had any initial problems with gauging how tight to stick to the glass? Octane had almost humerous problem with the acrylic for about 2 weeks and I had not seen others mentioning similar acclimation issues.

Octavarium,
You blew it. The first shot was a good candidate for the, Find the Ceph in the Photo (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13722) game.

Has either Octavius had any initial problems with gauging how tight to stick to the glass? Octane had almost humerous problem with the acrylic for about 2 weeks and I had not seen others mentioning similar acclimation issues.

Shoot, forgot about that thread sorry. I'll try and get some sneakier ones. Both seemed to stick on pretty good from the get go, never slip and seem to have good control with moving. I wonder how different acrylic is compared to glass for the suckers? Do you have any videos of Octane's fumblings?

Hey, I just turned 14 a month ago and got an octopus w/tank for my birthday so you can tell I'm new to this site. She is completely mine and stays in my room. The reason I'm posting this though is because I named mine Octavius too.

Hey, I just turned 14 a month ago and got an octopus w/tank for my birthday so you can tell I'm new to this site. She is completely mine and stays in my room. The reason I'm posting this though is because I named mine Octavius too.

:welcome: to TONMO, to you and your Octavius! If you tell Nancy your octo's species, age, and so forth, I'm sure she'd love to add Octavius to the "list of our octos"

i wouldnt think that there'd be much a difference between acrylic and glass for the octo to stick to.

RIP little buddy. He died today after not eating for 3+ days. I was very concerned over the glass bumping behavior he had, I don't know if that did him in or it was age, Im pretty sure he was near the end anyways since he looked same size as my first girl. I don't know what to do with the empty tank now, I'll wait a while I guess. I was thinking cuttle maybe for first try, but probably would miss an octopus after a while...so for now the 29 next to my bed is empty.

:angelpus: RIP Octavius... :cry:

RIP Octavius :angelpus:

:angelpus: RIP Octavious.

RIP Octavius

Sorry about Octavious. I am looking for another hummelincki but the reports from swf.com continue to be short lived critters so I am not willing to try (so far so good with Carol's second one though, not so with BigPappa). If you are anything like Neal and me, you won't leave the tank empty. Neal asked me tonight why I had not found another as we both miss 'Tane far more than we would have ever guessed.

RIP Octavious....