Just in case you guys don't know, I work at the NC Aquarium as an educator. Yesterday, I had a group out in the estuary for a crabbing program. Someone had left a 7 foot cast net on the beach and I was throwing it out a few times before we left. On the last throw, a 7 year old noticed a small blob in the net which I had missed. I thought it was a jelly until I noticed it had two huge eyes. It was a tiny 2" squid. I reached in and picked it up and it bit me! It only stung a little. I put it in a cooler of water where it proceded to ink. Afterwards, it seemed to be a bit happier, darting around. I couldn't resist taking it home and giving it a try. I acclimated it succesfully into truffles' (my old bimac) old tank. It did well all day yesterday, hovering about. It bumped into the glass only a couple times once it got used to it. It had great camo skills and was a blast to watch. It even threw up a threat posture at me when I stuck a stick in the tank. It passed away about 1 am this morning. I guess it just wasn't meant to be, maybe I'll give it another try when I have a 10 foot long tank for one to zoom about in. :D Rest in peace...squidward.
John

Thanks for telling us about this experience. Sorry that he passed away so soon, but it must have been very interesting keeping him for a little while.

You have a great job!

Nancy

Thas cool, John. 8)

E. scolopes is too. . . :heee:

Lucky guy!! Are you sure it was not one of the little kids in the net. :lol:

You are real lucky, few home aquarists can even get some squid let alone keep them. Glad you had fun with it, did you try feeding?

I had a bunch of tiny hermits in the tank. I was going to try to get some baby guppies or something the next day to see if it would attack them. Ohh well. John

I collect little prawns for my clowns form a local creek. I quite often get little squid in the net (less than 1/2 an inch long). I usually take them home. They last a few days on average before they become a meal for the clowns. In the meantime they hunt around the prawns which are about twice their size. Very fascinating! they actually mimic the shape of a prawn to sneak up on them!! Love to keep a few in a predator free tank!

Stephen

8)

Sweet.

:welcome: to TONMO, Worlybird!

Do you have any pics?

I'm thinking they might have been baby cuttles.

Sorry John but squid don't take snails :( , only crustaceans and fish.

Sorry to hear that John, but thats a difficult way to get and keep these critters.

Squids and Cuttles (partic squids) die much faster than Octis when they're under stress and/or have insufficient food. These are seriously greedy animals as I'm sure Kat and Steve can verify with the appetities of their babies!

I've had juvenile Arrows but they only lasted 3 days and I'm sure it was stress (they has HEAPS of food). One of the other students caught them accidentally and knew I'd be interested so popped them into a tank to keep for me but unfortunately it was in direct sunlight and in an area with a lot of foot traffic and EVERYONE wanted to see the baby squid. By the time I arrived at work (only an hour later) they were swimming eratically and starting at every shadow :(

So don't feel too bad (well silly thing to say I know) it was probably on the way out when you found it.

On another note what sort of education programmes do you run? I take education programmes at the portobello Aquarium here in NZ! (I guess it'd be best to PM me about this...not sure if everyone would want to get into the nitty gritty of teaching at an aquarium! :lol: )

Cheers

J

not sure if everyone would want to get into the nitty gritty of teaching at an aquarium! :lol: )


Dont jump to conclusions Jean... if they do something worthwhile, i might just have a reason to take a trip over to Wilmington....( havent had a reason since my bro got out of UNCW)

thrownet you say? did it look like this? a guy caught this when i was walking the beach last summer just northeast of charleston

[Dont jump to conclusions Jean... if they do something worthwhile, i might just have a reason to take a trip over to Wilmington....( havent had a reason since my bro got out of UNCW)



Sorry :oops:

J

If your trying to catch squid, a fine mesh dip net will work quite well as you don't get mantle damage but you have to be quick as the little blighters are fast (well at least in NZ they are) also keeping them in fresh flowing seawater (maybe in the dark) as soon as you get them might be a good idea as they do ink a lot and potentially can poison themselves.

Jean education is always interesting!!

Jean education is always interesting!!

Dunno, I can clear a room at a party pretty darn quickly by mentioning what I do! maybe I'm hanging with the wrong types!

J

Jean education is always interesting!!

Dunno, I can clear a room at a party pretty darn quickly by mentioning what I do! maybe I'm hanging with the wrong types!

J

No , that is the permanent squid smell that forever lingers

Btw- that was a cuttle not a squid in the pic.

I've tried many times, the squd I've caught don't seem to live much longer than a few minutes :(

What a fascinating discussion!!! Pretty amazing you at least got almost 24 with Squidward! I would love to hear what both you and Jean do at work!!

Carol

that was a cuttle not a squid in the pic.


it was a squid, it just looks kinda like a cuttle due to the way its hanging off the shell....

besides, cuttles dont live around the mid atlantic (at least on this side of the pond)

doh

I never knew sepioteuthis had such large fins, it looks sorta like a mini giant cuttle.

its hard to see the fins on the squid... between the sand and the shell that he's laying in.... plus i shrunk the pic to save space.... ill see if i can still find a big version....

I'm not sure how stressed my squid were. They always got eaten (or sucked through a power head) before they had a chance to settle in.
They usually seemed quite happy. They would sleep attached to the power cords or to the side glass. They seemed fairly calm (until they got chased of course).

I remember having one for a couple of weeks once. I had about 24 clowns at the national marine science centre, Australia. I fed them live inch long praws and so had a tank with a few hundred of them in it (no predators). one squid lasted a couple of weeks in there until he got sucked down a drain (tanks were on a seawater flow through system)

Maybe I should see how long one lasts without any predators or large water sucking things in the tank. cause they're always easy to get.

Stephen

Maybe it was a cuttle, WK...just swam over to get some chinese take out! (tired of bangers and mash?) :D
It is too bad they are soooo skitish, can you see a nice big tank with a school of Loligo? Neat.
greg

OK Folks Here's what I as an Aquarist /educator do. We Are a small aquarium so our staff tend to be jacks (or jills) of all trades! We look after the animals and their environment, collect animals and seaweeds, are the emergency technicians/security at weekends for the aquarium and laboratory (which includes plumbing!!!!!), we do front of house work (ie relieve you of your money!) take guided tours, holiday programmes etc. As far as the education side, we have a variety of programmes which link into the NZ school curriculum (we have one called Suckers and Tentacles on cephs!). We teach from pre school through high school and University level and also run professional courses (Marine Mammal Tour Operators course for eg) and Adults groups from Museum groups (we had a British Museum Group last year) to Cruise ship passengers and special interest tours. Where we don't have a course that a particular group wants we will design one. We also do tours on combination with other operators on the Otago Peninsula such as the Royal Albatross Centre. And we run sleepovers, birthday parties...night visits...etc etc

We do shore walks, Maori fishing technology, Marine Chemistry, Marine Geology, Marine Biology, Ecotourism and laboratory investigations...even seaweed eating! Any group that visits gets an aquarium tour of course.

So we're very diverse and flexible.

Check out our website....

http://www.otago.ac.nz/MarineStudies/


Cheers

j

Sounds fascinating Jean!!! We need a program like that here!! I would love to do the Suckers and Tentacles program for Jess's class!! (She's 1rst Grade).

Too bad New Zealand is so far away!!!

Sounds fascinating Jean!!! We need a program like that here!! I would love to do the Suckers and Tentacles program for Jess's class!! (She's 1rst Grade).

Too bad New Zealand is so far away!!!

Well we'd love to have you! For you guys I'd even take you round the back for a personal intro to Delphine!

J

Hello all,
Sorry to pull up an old post but it seems I never answered a question. I worked for the Aquarium as a special activities instructor meaning I catered to programs that people pre-registered for. Things such as canoe/kayak trips, crabbing, fishing, island excursions, invert, shark and reptile programs, birthdays, even sleepovers at the aquarium. It was a great job but the winters were hard as the programs disapear when the tourists leave. My fiance and I recently moved about two hours up the beach and I landed a job with one of the other of the three NC Aquariums. I am now an aquarist with the Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium(Atlantic Beach). We are currently closed for a 2 year/27 million dollar expansion. When we reopen we will have a 306,000 gallon tank in our line up, and yes, we will have octopus. All of our animals were released when the aquarium shut down last December. So now we are putting together new holding tanks and collecting new stock. We mostly have sea turtles, gators and venomous snakes right now but we are getting more fish each week. By the way, my old Aquarium at Fort Fisher is working on a new exotics exhibit to be finished next year. It will include lionfish, sea snakes and an exhibit devoted to Cuttles!!! You can check out our site at ncaquariums.com. Now, about that little squid I had, I caught several more through the summer, some as small as 1/2 inch. I didn't try to keep any more of them but they were plentiful this year. Later, John

Both you and Neptune posted today after a long absence! And I just mentioned Roxy in listing the 3 bimac siblings that lived out their full lifespan last year.

Nice to hear from you and your new job sounds exciting! I suppose you'll try to take charge of the octopus - any idea what species they'll have? It's never been quite clear to me how far down the coast you have to go before you find vulgaris and other octos - do you have them in North Carolina?

So I guess in one way or another you'll be keeping another octopus! Please keep us updated, this sounds really interesting.

Nancy

Hi Nancy, nice to hear from you.
Yep they'll be Vulgaris. The Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium had one on exhibit before but in a smaller tank. Hopefully we'll have something nicer for the next one. The commercial fisherman catch them all the time around here in fish/crab pots. Someone at the aquarium even saw a fisherman catch a small one on the pier right down the road from here yesterday. It wasn't even hooked, it was just holding on trying to rip the bait off! I fear if I had seen him, he'd of been coming home with me.

Well, maybe if you put out a small pot.... :)

Sounds to me like your on your way to another octopus!

Nancy

We are currently closed for a 2 year/27 million dollar expansion. When we reopen we will have a 306,000 gallon tank in our line up,


Sigh.........we can only dream!!!

BTW Potting is how we catch most of our octis!!

J

Well, maybe if you put out a small pot.... :)

Sounds to me like your on your way to another octopus!

NancyBTW Potting is how we catch most of our octis!!

The thought has crossed my mind several times. I also know a place on Cape Lookout where you can go snorkeling in tidepools and find little Vulgaris in whelk shells. I just don't know if I want to deal with the size and escape skills of a vulgaris yet. Although it would be cool to keep an octo you caught yourself. I'm sure it would only take a six pack of beer to get one from a local commercial fisherman.

Wow...some Rolling Rock, and an octo, presto! I envy you....

no kiddin! :P

Was it a square or rectangular tank? If so no wonder it died. They Die in tanks like that