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O. mercatoris babies!

Yeah, sorry about my stupid post, I had forgotten to look through the other pages, I just saw page one. Thanks though.
 
i just got a baby octo from a LFS. Not sure if it's an O. Vulgaris or Mercatoris, but it's very light grey in color and i'm afraid it won't eat.

it's crawled into a porous rock and hasn't come out in about 10 hours. I've thrown live feeder shrimp in there and he hasn't touched them. any ideas? frozen krill to start? thanks!
 
I've had an illness (stomach flu) as well as other maintenance tasks (sigh..) to do, so There wasn't many updates.. Sorry about that.

Yesterday was their third week of life. There are about 20-25 left. They are now almost half a centimetre in length. The tank now has very few octopi, apparently because they were dining on each other. Th container dwellers however, are quite healthy. I am still having a problem locating any saltwater shrimp, so gut loaded ghost shrimp is what I've been feeding them. It seems like it is working. Other than that, not much new things have been happening.

I've also noticed that they remember when the lights go on. I once counted 40 or so in the tank when I turned on the lights at about 5:30 AM. I always turn the lights on at 6:00 AN. I tried turning on the lights at 5:30 AM the next day, and I didn't see any octopi in the tank, except some odd ones in the corners. The mother is still alive, although still isn't accepting food.

I will try to upload a video sometime next week

socal_saltwater, Octopi are usually nocturnal, so he'll probably come out at night to feed. Keep an eye out for him, or use a red light to view him. Good Luck!
 
Lev,
Does the mom ever come out of her den? Did she come out when the eggs hatched? Trapper has chosen a barnicle shell and keeps it body blocked at all times even though she will stretch and show her beak at times. I take the beak exposure to mean, "I'm hungry, food slave, bring crabs" and act accordingly. Fortunately, she is eating better than before she started "nesting" but I am not sure what to expect next.
 
Mines didn't come out when she was brooding, but she did accept food halfway through the entire brooding period. Then she stopped one day. She does come out a couple of times after brooding, but she usually sits in her hole.

When you bought yours, did she immediately lay eggs, or was she behaving normally for a while? If so, how did she behave? Did she venture out in the daytime at all or was she strictly nocturnal?

I wish you the best of luck raising the babies!
 
Day 24: In the past couple of days, any octopus deaths I have had seem to be ceasing. I've had no deaths for two days now (knock on wood) and seem to be left with 10-15 exceedingly healthy octopi. I found the main causes of death to be:

Starvation (in the tank)
Self- Predation
Water Quality

and I've had a couple who have had skin diseases.
 
Lev,
Keep the cards and letters coming. Trap didn't eat last night (first time since she has restricted herself to the den) so I am thinking we may be getting close.
 
I have just discovered "Cthulhu," an octopus that was in the tank that is two times the size of the other juveniles. This leads me to think that the juveniles I have been maintaining are not growing very fast. I bet it's because of those stupid ghost shrimp I have been feeding them. I still cannot get any kind of saltwater feeder organism here, as hard as I have tried, and It is extremely frustrating. I might even just break out and buy them hermit crabs for $1.00 a piece if it has to come to that.

On the other hand, the other ones i saw in the tank are "normal" sized as well. maybe Cthulhu is just large? I will never know. Nevertheless, the lookout for food will not stop until I discover it.
 
Lev,
So you suppose that Cthulhu (I am going to have to read at least one Lovecraft book) is responsible for some of the missing in-tank octos? There is more than humor in that thought. If he IS eating other octos perhaps there is a key on food content.
 
He most likely did eat a fair amount of octopus. edict that is why he is so large. The in-tank octopus population dropped drastically sometime last week, I first noticed it the 10th of this month. I suspect starvation may have been the cause. Cthulhu still remains probably because he has been eating the smaller, weaker octopus. But my prediction is that Cthulhu was formerly a container octo. Their numbers fluctuated at one point because some escaped, while others went inside of the containers . I think Cthulhu was one of the really healthy escapees, and then fed himself accordingly to the tank. He does remind me of this one octopus in my containers, whom I was forced to separate from the roommates he had because he kept attacking them.

I do not believe though, that they require this food type. The smaller, but still nice and healthy octopi I am maintaining in the containers have roommates, some even with 3 other octopus. I once found 7 in one container. They didn't eat eat other (except one instance I witnessed.) or even show hints of aggression towards each other.

Today is a big day. The octopus have outgrown their containers. I will be moving them (very carefully!) to larger containers, in another tank. Hopefully this will give the current tank a break from all of the bio-load, and the octopi some free space in which to roam.
 
I need an explanation....sorry, but what do you mean "in another tank" The containers are in the tank? How are they in there, and where are they in the tank? Sorry about asking so many questions, but I really don't get the whole breeding/raising process. Could someone explain the process, or give a link to an explanation of it? Sorry, and thanks.
 
The containers are small plastic vials suspended in the tank by a thread of strong monofilament line. about 1/6th of the container is above the surface. They have holes drilled in the bottom for circulation, a thin layer of sand, and usually a small piece of rock and some macroalgae. I dip the containers into the water fully for about a minute to facilitate a full water change after feeding. See the movie earlier in this thread for a vid of the containers.

Here is an amazing, fully scaled, minute detailed diagram:
containers.jpg

:biggrin2:

The new containers are just large rectangular containers with holes drilled in the bottom attached to the side of the tank.


All of the octopi are alive and well in their new containers. Cthulhu is still around.:sagrin: The octopi I noticed are now acting like real octopi, hiding under the rocks by day. I noticed when they were smaller they were less nocturnal. Tomorrow they are a month old.
 

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