Nancy,
Thanks for the encouragement. And you bring out a good point in that a keeper must be nocturnal, dedicated and very patient (the babies really didn't do much the first 5 months) to have an octopus experience with the Mercs. Anyone expecting the interaction of the larger ones would be disappointed. Sistruris comes close though
Yes, the cyclop-eeze I use is frozen (I don't use dry or flake except to feed the food so I am not familiar with the other forms) and it is hard to find the smaller "bars" that used to be sold. It is quite expensive but the quantity is large for the price if you can find it locally. Unfortunately, I have to have mine shipped so I spend an unmentionable amount of money when I have to buy it. It looks like the frozen is whole critter, red and is slightly larger than new hatch brine. It looks a lot like the specs in Zooplex and about the same color (makes me wonder about what they use in Zooplex since it does not have to be kept cold). All my filter feeding inverts eat it (including the feather dusters) as well as the few fish I keep (excepting the lion, Trundle only eats live shore shrimp).
Filter feeding may be an erroneous term since octopuses have no filtering device but I am whole convinced that the Mercs catch small particles in the water with their suckers and then move the food to their mouths. Cephbase has a photo that shows new hatchlings swimming in the typical Merc posture and brings attention to the raised arms without explanation. I am sure this is a feeding pose.
http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/imgdb/...D=&CephID=555&Location=&Keywords=&LowestTaxa=
All my babies except Sistrurus feed with their arms curled outward from their dens anytime I squirt the Cyclop-eeze into the tank. Sistrurus is more overt and comes out into the openl rapidly wiggling his curled arm tips at feeding time. I fed them late last night and late again this evening and it took Sistrurus 10 minutes to appear tonight (normally it takes about 3 minutes after I sit in front of the tank).
Toward the end, Tapper would climb up the tank wall and position herself to be beak fed directly from the tip of the pipette (I have posted a video of this on her thread) but prior to this she would sweep the water with her arms (and is how I realized she was eating it). I tried putting the food in a shell (among other similar experiments) so that she could "dip" her arm in a rich mixture of the food but she ignored it. If the food is too dense, the octos will blow it away (it may effect their breathing but that is just conjecture based upon my observations). It does appear that Sistrurus will also pick it up on the live rock but I have not seen this in any of the others.
Thanks for the encouragement. And you bring out a good point in that a keeper must be nocturnal, dedicated and very patient (the babies really didn't do much the first 5 months) to have an octopus experience with the Mercs. Anyone expecting the interaction of the larger ones would be disappointed. Sistruris comes close though
Yes, the cyclop-eeze I use is frozen (I don't use dry or flake except to feed the food so I am not familiar with the other forms) and it is hard to find the smaller "bars" that used to be sold. It is quite expensive but the quantity is large for the price if you can find it locally. Unfortunately, I have to have mine shipped so I spend an unmentionable amount of money when I have to buy it. It looks like the frozen is whole critter, red and is slightly larger than new hatch brine. It looks a lot like the specs in Zooplex and about the same color (makes me wonder about what they use in Zooplex since it does not have to be kept cold). All my filter feeding inverts eat it (including the feather dusters) as well as the few fish I keep (excepting the lion, Trundle only eats live shore shrimp).
Filter feeding may be an erroneous term since octopuses have no filtering device but I am whole convinced that the Mercs catch small particles in the water with their suckers and then move the food to their mouths. Cephbase has a photo that shows new hatchlings swimming in the typical Merc posture and brings attention to the raised arms without explanation. I am sure this is a feeding pose.
http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/imgdb/...D=&CephID=555&Location=&Keywords=&LowestTaxa=
All my babies except Sistrurus feed with their arms curled outward from their dens anytime I squirt the Cyclop-eeze into the tank. Sistrurus is more overt and comes out into the openl rapidly wiggling his curled arm tips at feeding time. I fed them late last night and late again this evening and it took Sistrurus 10 minutes to appear tonight (normally it takes about 3 minutes after I sit in front of the tank).
Toward the end, Tapper would climb up the tank wall and position herself to be beak fed directly from the tip of the pipette (I have posted a video of this on her thread) but prior to this she would sweep the water with her arms (and is how I realized she was eating it). I tried putting the food in a shell (among other similar experiments) so that she could "dip" her arm in a rich mixture of the food but she ignored it. If the food is too dense, the octos will blow it away (it may effect their breathing but that is just conjecture based upon my observations). It does appear that Sistrurus will also pick it up on the live rock but I have not seen this in any of the others.