thinking of raising briareus

[simple]

Hi everyone, well Tom from Tom's Caribbeans has a briareus female that has eggs. Originally i instantly said no, but now i am thinking maybe i should try rearing the babies. Since Tom lives close to me i could meet up with him and avoid shipping.
If i do raise them successfully then i would sell the babies on here for no profit, just as much as is needed to cover the cost of food and shipping.
Now to the real questions. From what i've read i would need to feed them mysis or amphipods. Is this correct?
If so, were can i get these cheaply?.
Also, i live close to the ocean, so does anyone know where and how i could collect food myself, since this would bring the cost of keeping and raising them down by a lot.
Thanks in Advance :)

[DWhatley]

I'm expecting that SueNami is a mated female but hoping to be way behind you so keep a very detailed journal!!! I would pickup a bar of Cyclop-eeze to keep in the freezer for supplement or days when food is a problem. The mercs got it with every meal and the original mom lived much longer than normal after the brood hatched (her daughter mated a second time and went into brooding behind the tank. I THINK I know where she was and about the time the eggs (there were not likely any) would have hatched, I saw a shell drop from the suspected chamber. That would have put her a month past egg hatch if 2+2 = 4 on second guessing. I don't know that the Cyclop-eeze was responsible at all but it is a good baby food if they eat it.

[Nancy]

I raised a briareus to over four months in a tank stocked with mysis and with its own large supply of amphipods. There were also crabs including very small ones. So it is possible with mysids and amphipods, then moving onto crabs.

Nancy

[simple]

Yea, the main thing for me is being able to collect the food locally, otherwise the cost would just be too much, and i would rather just get a young octopus.

[DWhatley]

I will make a suggestion based on my own vicarious experience with Joe and Connanny's babies and is what I plan to do if SueNami has young. Prepare containers for single individuals (I am thinking somewhere between 5 and 10) and isolate them before they are a week old. The rest leave in the tank and try not to be to upset with what happens. Joe's tank was saturated with live food (from his backdoor biou ;>). Just before we arrived (roughly 2 weeks after they hatched) the ones in his very large tank (my guess is 160 - 200 gallons) started dieing off in droves. Each had little damaged places in their mantles and we could see damage on many live ones in the tank. Joe thought this started about 3 days before we arrived. He gave us the ones he had isolated (that did not make the trip home sadly) and put others into isolation. None of the babies survived.

The mercs are much easier to raise but, for whatever reason (they don't appear to attack each other) IME only 5-6 grow into adults. The odd thing is that this has been the case with both Greg's and my rearing attempts with a highly differing numbers of hatchlings. Second guessing, based solely on the fact that Trapper had only 6 young (odd in itself so I am wondering if she laid eggs and then moved before finishing the egg laying when I offered a better den - odd in itself and may be way off-base), I would go for the last of the hatching rather than the first. My strategy will be to try to separate the young :roll: and capture and replace the ones I isolate each day of the hatching. It won't be easy but the design of SueNami's tank makes it slightly feasible if I point the Koralias toward the non-brood side at night and place a screen over the tubes durning the day. At least this is what I have come up with so far :wink:

[simple]

Would it be ok to raise them on just amphipods? since i can collect some locally and i can breed them in a much simpler set up than what mysis requires.

[Nancy]

I can't say for certain, but the mysids, at least the ones I used, were much smaller than the amphipods and provided food for the very young hatchlings. This was the sequence used at the NRCC for raising bimacs: mysids, amphipods, then on to small crabs and shrimp.

Chris Shaw observed some time ago that bristle worms can damage hatchlings by grabbing the food they've captured and taking an arm or two with the food. I saw evidence of this myself.

Nancy

[simple]

Alright, well im waiting for an answer from Tom on the price for the eggs, but yea i'll probably do mysis and then amphipods; hopefully the switch from mysis to amphipods doesn't take long.

[simple]

Ok, Tom responded and im getting the eggs sometime soon for 20 bucks. I plan to artificially hatch them using an airstone (like it says here (http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/rearing.php))
Then i will feed them mysis at first and slowly introduce amphipods (which i will culture at home and collect at the beach)
I plan to raise a few (15-20) in breeder nets with 2-3 per net and the rest i will leave in a tank with live rock and amphipods and mysis.
Does this all sound good? Please tell me if i am missing anything.
Thanks.
Also, does anyone have an estimate as to how long they will need to be fed mysis before i can use amphipods?

[Mr Blobby]

interesting. I agreed to buy the mama octo with her eggs from Tom yesterday, I bet you're getting some of the eggs. We will have to keep in touch and share tips etc! I have also ordered mysids, amphipods and fiddlers to start propagating for food.

[simple]

oh that is weird. I guess more money for him then. Hopefully artificially hatching them will work well. Did you get your mysis from Sachs Aquaculture, or have you found a cheaper source? I really hope that they don't need the mysis for too long since that would save me a ton of money. Also, how are you setting up the tanks in which you will hatch them, grow them out etc.?
When are you getting the eggs?
Thanks.

[Nancy]

There is a TFH book that came out just before our Cephalopods book: Culturing Live Foods, by Michael R. Hellweg.

He does cover mysids and amphipods. In short, mysids are difficult to culture and require cold water, and amphipods are much easier to culture, but take two or three months until you can harvest the extra.

Nancy

[simple]

I plan on ordering mysids from Sachs Aquaculture, as well as some amphipods. I will also try to collect my own hopefully this week. There should be plenty near a beach/ lagoon thats 10 min. from my house and has a ton of mangroves, macroalgae and mud, so i will try to go there and if i cant find any there, ill take a drive down to the keys, where there will be some for sure.
Can anyone come up with an estimate as to how long the hatchlings will need to feed on mysids before they can eat amphipods?
Also, as a side note, i was looking at joefish's thread (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12951&highlight=conanny) in which he attempted to raise briareus and he never states why the young died. Does anyone know why this occurred?
Thanks

[Nancy]

Most of the time we don't know why they die. They can die of apparently no cause, even if you put them in separate compartments. The mortality rate is high in the ocean as well.

One cause may be failure to have or find just the right size of food when they need it.

You won't have to use mysids too long - I put them in my tank, which already had amphipods and other small creatures, so I'm not sure when the switch was made.

Nancy

[Mr Blobby]

oh that is weird. I guess more money for him then. Hopefully artificially hatching them will work well. Did you get your mysis from Sachs Aquaculture, or have you found a cheaper source? I really hope that they don't need the mysis for too long since that would save me a ton of money. Also, how are you setting up the tanks in which you will hatch them, grow them out etc.?
When are you getting the eggs?
Thanks.
yes, I got mysids from Sachs. And since I hadn't really planned on hatching eggs, I don't have seperate containers set up yet.(haven't even figured out that part yet) Tom was supposed to e-mail me an invoice today but didn't. Hopefully he will tomorrow. I have a tank set up for an octo, and three for food critters. Any ideas on how to make seperate compartments/containers?

[DWhatley]

Simple,
You might consider a couple of nets with JUST 1. The predation was very heavy once it started with Conanny's offspring. I know Joe was going to pull out a few more for separation after he gave us the ones he had kept in a separate aquarium but I don't know if he kept even these as individuals. Joe's tank is very large but the babies found and mauled each other very early.

I am about to inherit a 65 from my son so we are going to replace Octane's tank with the larger one (another tank to take care of I don't need!) and likely use it for SueNami's offspring if they happen (unless a concurrent hummelincki detours the plan but even that will likely work out OK after SueNami is gone) so I will be anxious for recordings of successes and failures from both you and Mr. Blobby.

[simple]

Yea after reading Joefish's experience with predation i think ill try separating maybe around 20 or so individually; if i have space i will do more; because he did describe the holes in the mantle which seem to show that they were killing each other. I will probably get the eggs on thursday; I will try to go collect food today and see what i can get..

[Mr Blobby]

I wonder if perhaps separating them in such a way that they cannot see each other will decrease stress? Sounds impossible tho. I was considering possibly using those little plastic fish brooder boxes and putting black plastic on the sides facing others. But I'm afraid the flow thru those things may not be adequate. Also, can someone tell me approx how long the female will live after spawning? Until the eggs hatch?

[simple]

I plan on perhaps using dixie cups with netting over them; that way they wont see each other and it'll be fairly cheap as well. The important thing isn't so much the flow but the oxygenation of the water; at least thats what it seems from what i've read. Alright well i'm off to go collect amphipods; wish me luck.

[Mr Blobby]

I was thinking in terms of consistent, fresh water(uh, fresh...salt...water)with the flow part. I will probably go with breeder nets, but check out PennPlax's Betta Condo (google it). Also, what do people (anyone) think about if coral supplements are taken up by/or affect octos/eggs?

[simple]

Well my collecting trip was pretty succesful i got amphipods of all sizes. I was only there for about 20 minutes, but i probably got around 30-50. I have them in a 1 gal tank with an air pump and a bunch of the algae that i found them in. There are some pretty small ones, like this big .. and some bigger ones up to this big .... so they should be good for getting the octops to slowly adjust to larger foods.

[simple]

Bad news, i just got this message from Tom: "I looked really close to the eggs and they do not seem to be developing. There should be eyes in some eggs by now. In fact a couple of them are falling apart. I'm thinking they are not fertile. I will let you know when I get more."
That sucks, oh well i guess i'll just have to wait.

[DWhatley]

Mr. Blobby,
I would avoid using supplements in the tank at all with the female, eggs and hatchlings. Not because I know anything negative but because we don't know what effects they might/might not have and the corals can survive well without them.

Flow is another unknown. In addition to keeping clean water in the container, I tend to think it is quite important for getting the hatchlings to eat. With the mercs, I kept the powerhead blowing through the net. An air stone might be someting to consider for both gas exchange and a little movement. Thales has mentioned that he thinks it is over played but was referring to adults (hopefully he will make a correction if I am misremembering).

Conanny lived several weeks after the hatching (she was still alive when we visited at two weeks post hatch). Most octos we keep will live through the hatching but the post hatch time has varied considerably.

[Mr Blobby]

Simple-

He sent the eggs (and the female) to me. I hope I have not been ripped off. There were only about 30 eggs, I figured you got the rest. Of course I have no idea what the eggs are supposed to look like. I can see a very pale blob at one end of each egg, but they do not appear to be moving.

I really hope this does not turn out like it's sounding. I have happily waited and was willing to still wait, to get a healthy animal from a reputable dealer. Tom's seemed highly regarded on this forum, so I figured it was a sure thing. I guess I could e-mail him, but nothing will tell the sure truth but time.

If you do get eggs soon, keep in touch. I am interested to hear how it goes, and I will of course keep posting on progress or lack thereof.

[DWhatley]

Mr. Blobby,

I am a little concerned about your statement,
I have happily waited and was willing to still wait, to get a healthy animal. A brooding female is not healthy. Females (for most specied there is at least one exception but briareus is not one of them) brood at the end of their lives. Typically, they go into their dens, lay their eggs and tend them without leaving the den. Most will not eat during this time, in spite of many attempts to feed them. Success with getting them to eat while brooding may extend their lives for a few weeks but not months. If anyone knowingly takes a female with eggs, it should be in hopes of raising the young, not in having an octo keeping experience with the adult.

[simple]

well he told me they didnt seem fertile, but it is also possible that he told me that since it would be better for him to sell you the eggs AND the octopus for 36 bucks instead of selling me just the eggs, and keeping a near death octopus, but he felt bad for turning me down so gave me some sort of excuse. I'm not saying he did this or not but it is possible and if so, then there should still be hope. Usually, you can see two little dots in the eggs which are meant to be the eyes of the young.

[Mr Blobby]

Mr. Blobby,

I am a little concerned about your statement, A brooding female is not healthy. Females (for most specied there is at least one exception but briareus is not one of them) brood at the end of their lives. Typically, they go into their dens, lay their eggs and tend them without leaving the den. Most will not eat during this time, in spite of many attempts to feed them. Success with getting them to eat while brooding may extend their lives for a few weeks but not months. If anyone knowingly takes a female with eggs, it should be in hopes of raising the young, not in having an octo keeping experience with the adult.
Sorry for not being clear, I was reflecting on my trying to choose the right dealer for the right reasons, and also I guess I was thinking of viable eggs as being a potential 'healthy animal'. In hindsight, it was a poor choice of words. I knew that she would be at the end of her life. I was disappointed at the thought of having a dying female and sterile/damaged eggs that wouldn't produce offspring. I just seem to be having the new-mom panic attacks ;)

[Mr Blobby]

well he told me they didnt seem fertile, but it is also possible that he told me that since it would be better for him to sell you the eggs AND the octopus for 36 bucks instead of selling me just the eggs, and keeping a near death octopus, but he felt bad for turning me down so gave me some sort of excuse. I'm not saying he did this or not but it is possible and if so, then there should still be hope. Usually, you can see two little dots in the eggs which are meant to be the eyes of the young.
simple-

who knows what really happened. maybe it isn't even the same batch of eggs. Tho it strikes me as a small number of eggs, isn't their clutch size supposed to be much larger- in the 500 range? I got about 30 before she did whatever she did with them.

[DWhatley]

Mr. Blobby,
Thanks for clarifying as I thought you had been reading quite a bit before ordering but sometimes people miss that part and I did not want YOU to have a panic attack :shock:

[Mr Blobby]

Thanks.
Unfortunately my reading has not paid off too well. (see my last post on the "help" thread.)

[Mr Blobby]

While several eggs developed primitive eyespots (looked like red smooshed doughnuts under the 'scope), only one has developed real 3-D eyeballs and chromatophores and tentacles. So my fingers are crossed that I can make this one live!

[simple]

Best of luck to that one, hopefully it pulls through. Do you have any pics of it?

[Mr Blobby]

no pix. just a cheap camera w/no macro lens. and I dare not handle the egg enough to take it to work to put under the microscope to photo it. There are still eggs w/eyespots and octo-form in them that are not yellowed. I wonder if they could have been fertilized at a later time (doubt it) or if they just stopped developing. Anyone know if eggs can hatch a week or so apart? (O. briareus.) Also, the developed one moved inside the egg when I shined a light on it, any guesses as to how many days before hatching?

[DWhatley]

It usually takes about a week for all the babies to hatch. The second brood of mercs took 10 full days to completely hatch (the first very small group hatched in 4 days).