Wonderpus - Fontanelle

[pipsquek]

It seems to me Jean that the eelgrass wouldn't as long with an octopus in a small tank, small relative to their wild habitat. I would expect that if he really started burrowing, it would just get pushed out of the muck pretty quickly. I think Thales idea so some sort of plastic that would act in the same way as roots would be the way to go. Six pack rings come to mind, with zip ties holding a few of them together in a clump and to attach them to something at the very bottom of the tank so they don't float up. Maybe even give them a flash with a torch so that they melt out of that flat shape into a more round and unruly one, might be a bit more natural. If I can find a few of them I'll give it a shot.

Thales - In the new tank your setting up, could you look from the underside of the tank to see if he is burrowing at the bottom once you put the plastic in?

 

[Jean]

The seagrass here has a complicated and tough root system, we had it is small tanks as we were interested in observing the burrow system of the ghost shrimp, who are extremely efficient bioturbators. It was planted in a patchy fashion to replicate the mudflat, so there were patches of seagrass next to patches of muddy sand (I'm talking about a 30G tank here) it worked a treat! You do need to let the grass establish before you add critters tho'.

We also had it in the public aquarium touch tanks and it survived small children (hundreds of them!) for over a year. That tank also had burrowing cucumbers, mudflat anemones, mud whelks, mud snails (very cool, they're pulmonates so need a period out of water, these are not tidal tanks so we were worried about them, but needn't have been, when it was low tide on their native mudflat they simply climbed out of the tank and sat on the rim, and at hightide they crawled back into the water!)and a number of burrowing bivalves.

The major problem we had was that as the old blades of grass died off they blocked the drains! Especially in autumn.

J

 

[DWhatley]

Thales,
I have no clue as to whether this stuff would be helpful or not but I was looking for something else and came across this:

http://www.petsolutions.com/Marine+Biosediment-I-51900679-I-C-45-C-.aspx

 

[Thales]

Hey D,

I actually looked at that stuff today - its just sand. :grin;

I was able to pick up some 'Fiji' mud. This stuff is really mud, so he might like it. It holds its shape if you stick your finger in it. It does cloud the tank so we'll see how it goes. I also picked up some bio bale, and put it in mineral mud on the side of the tank opposite of the 'Fiji' mud.

 

[Thales]

He's in the new tank.

I was taking pics of the new top when he came swimming out and right into a tupperware that was sitting in his tank to make catching him easy. It did! He has been in for about 10 minutes and has been checking out the new digs. He went behind the overflow intake, but didn't stay there. He has not eaten yet either. The new tank isn't as tall but it much wider.

Below is a pic of the 'octo proof top' I made. Either end of the tank has a custom cut and fitted piece of acrylic glued in place with super glue. Any small openings were filled with epoxy putty. The removable center piece has overlapping lips on either side for stability, to cover any potential spaces and to make it easy to tell if the lid is in place or askew. The round black thing on the top is the top of a plastic jar that I cut and glued into place. Then I cut a hole under the screw on cap and voila, a way to drop food into the tank without removing the lid. Great for vacation tank minders, and I don't think he will be able to unscrew the lid from the inside because it locks down pretty tight (if I get scared, I can drill a locking pin into it).
Now all I need is a new light that goes the entire length of the tank for picture purposes!

 

[DWhatley]

Thales,
How are you "locking" the removable part down? I keep looking for some kind of swivel latch for my top (at present it takes a screw driver to release half of it) but can't seem to come up with one but I don't see any lock-downs on your lid.

 

[Thales]

I'm not locking the cover down. I am weighing it down with the light and a rock. If I felt the need to lock it down I might use tape or come up with something else. I'll think about it.

 

[Thales]

He seems to be doing fine in the new tank. Today I fed him again and he grabbed the shrimp, killed it, ate its locomotive paddles and dropped it.
He is spending lots of time on the front glass, making picture taking not so great. I may move the sump return to point in a different direction to see if that changes where he hangs out. I am waiting though to see what he does. I am nervous. I am still wondering if the height of the old tank was better for him than the width of the new tank.

 

[mucktopus]

Here's hoping he burrows into the new muck. My guess is if it's the right substrate you won't need to fortify burrows with plastic tubes. Other muck octos can form their own burrows in the sand. I kept a Hawaiian Long Armed sand octo that built its own burrow in over the course of about two nights. Substrate was about 8 inches of sand, tank was probably about 100 gallons with flow-through seawater. I can't confirm that Wunderpus does this also (rather than taking over burrows of other muck animals) but my guess is it does.

 

[Thales]

Thanks!
I saw him digging his arms about 1/2 an inch into the mud. Hopefully he'll go deeper. I am gonna keep an eye out for mud sales and see if I can pick up some more. I am off to a couple industry trade shows this summer, so maybe I can convince a manufacturer to gimmie some.

Today is the 5 week anniversary!

 

[Thales]

Fed him today. He took the shrimp, killed it and ate some if it. I came back in the room 1/2 hour later and the shrimp was on the floor. I went to take a pic of the shrimp to get a better look at the feeding pattern. As I came up with the camera, Fontanelle swooped down onto the shrimp from across the tank as if he was getting it before I could get it. Anthropomorphic? Maybe!

 

[Neogonodactylus]

Can't remember if you are using local live grass shrimp, but if you are, a word of caution. We have been using grass shrimp locally caught all winter with great success. Then about 10 days ago we started to have increasing mortality amoung our bimac juveniles and stomatopods - only those individuals being feed live grass shrimp. The bait shop that I buy from said that he had used a different supplier who catches them in a different location in the bay. I suspect some sort of pollutant, perhaps heavy metals. In the mean time I've switched back to frozen grass shrimp and the mortality is down.

Roy

 

[Thales]

Where have you been getting them Roy? Mikes Bait on 14th? They didn't mention anything about a different supplier, but they did have a week or so of no shrimp due to the rain.

 

[Thales]

Here he is swimming across his new house, and another of him sleeping on the glass. This is exactly the kind of position he sleeps in behind the overflow intake. Not sure what the sleeping in the open might mean - not worried about predators? Senescing? I hope not, and don't think so as he is pretty active when he isn't sleeping.

 

[Thales]

I also caught him digging in the mud. You can see the excavation to his right going down. He was doing this during the day, so hopefully he will continue today.

I have also never seen him even think about escaping. I have never seen an arm break the surface tension of the water (though he will prowl at the water line), and the few times I have seen an arm moved (or pulled by the water flow) into the overflow intake, where it would be exposed to air, he has quickly jerked it away.