- Contributing Authors
- Tim Tytle (Dr. Lizz)
Foreward
by Tony Morelli (tonmo)
As a member of the TONMO community, unless you've been living under a rock... hmm, wait a minute...
....let me start this again...
As a member of the TONMO community, you've probably heard about the story of Terrance the pet octopus, gifted to a 9-year-old boy in Oklahoma who had always been a big fan of octopuses. As the family ultimately learned, Terrance was female, and -- surprise! -- their pet octopus laid ~50 eggs, much to the delight of their followers on social media like Tik Tok and their doctoktopus Instagram account.
Those who have followed closely know that the 50 babies ended up (in part) under the care of family friend Tim Tytle, a fellow Oklahoman with ceph-keeping experience of his own. Known as Dr. Lizz on TONMO, he has been assisting the family and has gained rare experience in the raising of bimac hatchlings.
Dr. Lizz provided us with a summary of his experience, including some insightful technical details about his setup. He also sent me a beautiful photo (taken by his daughter) of his own pet bimac (NOT Terrance!), which I've attached to this article.
Below the story from Dr. Lizz himself, which he's invited me to share with the TONMO community.
--Tony Morelli, Founder, Owner, TONMO.com
How I found myself caring for Terrance the bimac's babies / April 2024 update
by Tim Tytle (Dr. Lizz)
I am an eighty year old recently retired physician with a life long-held interest in cephalopods. I have also had a life long interest in lizards, particularly geckos. My gecko collection/business is extensive, but that is another story.
There was no room in my 1250 sq ft basement for another gecko let alone an octopus. BUT, I had a vacant duplex rental property just twelve miles away and I already had a 300 gallon tank there for my pair of Fly River Turtles. In January of this year I ordered two small Bimacs and a custom built 220 gallon aquarium. Once the tank cycled the two octopuses arrived. While I was very well aware of the potential for conflict between the two arrivals one octopus was several times the size of the other. I immediately changed plans and placed only the larger of the two in the 220. The “baby” was placed in a rapidly prepared 55 gallon tank. What had I gotten myself into? I ordered a second custom tank, this one a 117 gallon.
Chris, my aquarium guy, said he knew of one other Oklahoman with an octopus and he lived only 15 miles away. I contacted Cameron, a practicing Dentist who, the previous October had acquired an older Bimac as a surprise present for his oldest son's ninth Birthday. As we shared a common interest we rapidly became good friends. He told me that he learned his octopus was definitely a female when, on 19 December, it laid eggs.
Fast forward to 19 February evening when I received an excited phone call from Cameron stating the eggs he had previously assumed were infertile were hatching.
Over a period of three weeks over 50 eggs hatched. We teamed up and placed each hatchling in a 8 ounce plastic container with several tiny hales drilled in the lids. The containers were stacked in the same 60 gallon tank housing his female.
We fed each baby live Mysids shrimp which they eagerly accepted. As expected, all did not go smoothly and a number of hatchlings died either from unknown causes or our own learning curve. Our mistakes which led to deaths are important to share. These included hatchlings escaping through even the smallest holes not to be again found in the holding tank.
Do to being overworked and complicated by a major water leak in his kitchen we transported all remaining hatchlings in their same containers to a 55 gallon available tank at my duplex. Since it was late at night and we could not watch the hatchlings all night we left half in their containers in a five gallon buck and the rest in the 55. A second mistake, as there we no deaths of those in the 55, but six deaths of those in the bucket.
The next several weeks were largely uneventful. Cameron placed our story on the internet and all hell broke loose. The story aired on local and national networks and in major newspapers to include USA Today, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
An addition initially unexplained issue became apparent. Over the past nine days, one by one, six of the remaining 24 hatchlings died. This prompted urgent phone calls for assistance. One of these was to a New York DO hobbyist and in brainstorming possible etiologies he came up with hypoxia. The hatchlings were dying from a “simple” lack of oxygen. I urgently placed a small bubbler into each remaining container and all remaining 18 survived. This included three still alive, but not well.
The third tragic lesson learned was: As new hatchlings the tiny holes and oxygenated frequent water changes were adequate to sustain the hatchlings, but as they grew so did their oxygen requirement until it exceeded that in the containers. Cameroon and I immediately purchased two pool nets and cut out the netting into squares which we secured to the tops of the containers with rubber bands. In addition we placed two large bubblers into the holding 55 gallon tank. We ordered two small power heads to further increase water flow.
I had purchased another custom tank, this one a 180 gallon with two center dividers both of which have large screened holes for water flow. I hope to keep and raise three of the hatchlings and to breed a pair of them. I feel that with lessons painfully learned I will have far better luck the second time around. Tentacles crossed!
by Tony Morelli (tonmo)
As a member of the TONMO community, unless you've been living under a rock... hmm, wait a minute...
....let me start this again...As a member of the TONMO community, you've probably heard about the story of Terrance the pet octopus, gifted to a 9-year-old boy in Oklahoma who had always been a big fan of octopuses. As the family ultimately learned, Terrance was female, and -- surprise! -- their pet octopus laid ~50 eggs, much to the delight of their followers on social media like Tik Tok and their doctoktopus Instagram account.
Those who have followed closely know that the 50 babies ended up (in part) under the care of family friend Tim Tytle, a fellow Oklahoman with ceph-keeping experience of his own. Known as Dr. Lizz on TONMO, he has been assisting the family and has gained rare experience in the raising of bimac hatchlings.
Dr. Lizz provided us with a summary of his experience, including some insightful technical details about his setup. He also sent me a beautiful photo (taken by his daughter) of his own pet bimac (NOT Terrance!), which I've attached to this article.
Below the story from Dr. Lizz himself, which he's invited me to share with the TONMO community.
--Tony Morelli, Founder, Owner, TONMO.com
How I found myself caring for Terrance the bimac's babies / April 2024 update
by Tim Tytle (Dr. Lizz)
I am an eighty year old recently retired physician with a life long-held interest in cephalopods. I have also had a life long interest in lizards, particularly geckos. My gecko collection/business is extensive, but that is another story.
There was no room in my 1250 sq ft basement for another gecko let alone an octopus. BUT, I had a vacant duplex rental property just twelve miles away and I already had a 300 gallon tank there for my pair of Fly River Turtles. In January of this year I ordered two small Bimacs and a custom built 220 gallon aquarium. Once the tank cycled the two octopuses arrived. While I was very well aware of the potential for conflict between the two arrivals one octopus was several times the size of the other. I immediately changed plans and placed only the larger of the two in the 220. The “baby” was placed in a rapidly prepared 55 gallon tank. What had I gotten myself into? I ordered a second custom tank, this one a 117 gallon.
Chris, my aquarium guy, said he knew of one other Oklahoman with an octopus and he lived only 15 miles away. I contacted Cameron, a practicing Dentist who, the previous October had acquired an older Bimac as a surprise present for his oldest son's ninth Birthday. As we shared a common interest we rapidly became good friends. He told me that he learned his octopus was definitely a female when, on 19 December, it laid eggs.
Fast forward to 19 February evening when I received an excited phone call from Cameron stating the eggs he had previously assumed were infertile were hatching.
Over a period of three weeks over 50 eggs hatched. We teamed up and placed each hatchling in a 8 ounce plastic container with several tiny hales drilled in the lids. The containers were stacked in the same 60 gallon tank housing his female.
We fed each baby live Mysids shrimp which they eagerly accepted. As expected, all did not go smoothly and a number of hatchlings died either from unknown causes or our own learning curve. Our mistakes which led to deaths are important to share. These included hatchlings escaping through even the smallest holes not to be again found in the holding tank.
Do to being overworked and complicated by a major water leak in his kitchen we transported all remaining hatchlings in their same containers to a 55 gallon available tank at my duplex. Since it was late at night and we could not watch the hatchlings all night we left half in their containers in a five gallon buck and the rest in the 55. A second mistake, as there we no deaths of those in the 55, but six deaths of those in the bucket.
The next several weeks were largely uneventful. Cameron placed our story on the internet and all hell broke loose. The story aired on local and national networks and in major newspapers to include USA Today, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
An addition initially unexplained issue became apparent. Over the past nine days, one by one, six of the remaining 24 hatchlings died. This prompted urgent phone calls for assistance. One of these was to a New York DO hobbyist and in brainstorming possible etiologies he came up with hypoxia. The hatchlings were dying from a “simple” lack of oxygen. I urgently placed a small bubbler into each remaining container and all remaining 18 survived. This included three still alive, but not well.
The third tragic lesson learned was: As new hatchlings the tiny holes and oxygenated frequent water changes were adequate to sustain the hatchlings, but as they grew so did their oxygen requirement until it exceeded that in the containers. Cameroon and I immediately purchased two pool nets and cut out the netting into squares which we secured to the tops of the containers with rubber bands. In addition we placed two large bubblers into the holding 55 gallon tank. We ordered two small power heads to further increase water flow.
I had purchased another custom tank, this one a 180 gallon with two center dividers both of which have large screened holes for water flow. I hope to keep and raise three of the hatchlings and to breed a pair of them. I feel that with lessons painfully learned I will have far better luck the second time around. Tentacles crossed!
