Hello all,
I have just joined the group and am contacting you to get educated. My daughters and I are marnie enthusiasts and through the process of earning various dive certifications with my older daughter over the past couple of years we have all become deeply enchanted by cephalopods. Through interacting with cephs, particularly various octopuses, we have developed a deep respect, affection, and fascination for them.
We are also aquarists, and while normally I would not be comfortable keeping a ceph in an aquarium, I recently saw a mimic octopus for sale at a local aquarium shop. As those of you who are serious aquarists will appreciate, there are some who come to the hobby with little respect for marine life and even less personal discipline in terms of doing what is needed to properly care for marine animals, so I feared for the octopus' safety.
Long story short, I brought the octopus home, hoping to make a good home for her. We put her in a 30-gal species tank, where she seems to have settled in well. She was eating voracioulsy and appeared to be following natural behaviors, at least to the degree that this is possible in captivity.
Last week she began exhibiting actions that I believe are indicative of laying and caring for eggs. She has "holed up" under one of the live rocks (which is resting on live sand) that has a small concavity on its underside, no longer comes out from under the rock for any reason, and has ceased eating all together.
Alarmed that she might be ill, I briefly removed the rock last week. Between her and the top of the "cave" was a white milky substance. She swam out from under the rock, looking healthy and active, ignored alll food and other stimulants in the tank, and after less than 5 minutes moved back under the rock and has not reappeared since for any reason.
I have attempted to reasearch the mimic on the Internet, but have found precious little. Hence, my various pleas:
1) How can I be sure she has laid eggs and is caring for same?
2) Back to original causes and despite my repeated use of the feminine pronoun in this missive - how does one sex a mimic (or any other octopus)?
3) Assuming she has laid eggs and is ignoring her own health to ensure that of her brood is there anything I can do to ensure the highest possible hatch and survival rate amongst the eggs (best temperature, increased water oxygenation, any "food" I could suspend in the water that she might ingest directly or indirectly, increased/decreased minerals/vitamtins/whatever, changing the pump infrastructure so as not to suck newly hatched cephs through the system, etc.)?
4) Anyone know the gestation period of mimic octopus eggs? By the way, I have no way of knowing when she was in the open ocean last, but if she came to me by the quickest possible route she has been out of the ocean at least 45 days - how long can a female ceph carry fertilized eggs before "laying" same?
5) Is there any kind of small fiber-sized (yet "affordable") underwater camera that I could insinuate into the "cave" to observe the process?
5) I understand that often octopuses will "work themselves to death" by not eating while caring for their gestating eggs, is there anything I can do to arrest this process and give her a chance to survive and the eggs a better chance to hatch and survive?
6) Please ask and answer any other questions that my current ignorance prevents my even knowing to ask.
Sorry for the length of this communique, but any help you might provide would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
David
I have just joined the group and am contacting you to get educated. My daughters and I are marnie enthusiasts and through the process of earning various dive certifications with my older daughter over the past couple of years we have all become deeply enchanted by cephalopods. Through interacting with cephs, particularly various octopuses, we have developed a deep respect, affection, and fascination for them.
We are also aquarists, and while normally I would not be comfortable keeping a ceph in an aquarium, I recently saw a mimic octopus for sale at a local aquarium shop. As those of you who are serious aquarists will appreciate, there are some who come to the hobby with little respect for marine life and even less personal discipline in terms of doing what is needed to properly care for marine animals, so I feared for the octopus' safety.
Long story short, I brought the octopus home, hoping to make a good home for her. We put her in a 30-gal species tank, where she seems to have settled in well. She was eating voracioulsy and appeared to be following natural behaviors, at least to the degree that this is possible in captivity.
Last week she began exhibiting actions that I believe are indicative of laying and caring for eggs. She has "holed up" under one of the live rocks (which is resting on live sand) that has a small concavity on its underside, no longer comes out from under the rock for any reason, and has ceased eating all together.
Alarmed that she might be ill, I briefly removed the rock last week. Between her and the top of the "cave" was a white milky substance. She swam out from under the rock, looking healthy and active, ignored alll food and other stimulants in the tank, and after less than 5 minutes moved back under the rock and has not reappeared since for any reason.
I have attempted to reasearch the mimic on the Internet, but have found precious little. Hence, my various pleas:
1) How can I be sure she has laid eggs and is caring for same?
2) Back to original causes and despite my repeated use of the feminine pronoun in this missive - how does one sex a mimic (or any other octopus)?
3) Assuming she has laid eggs and is ignoring her own health to ensure that of her brood is there anything I can do to ensure the highest possible hatch and survival rate amongst the eggs (best temperature, increased water oxygenation, any "food" I could suspend in the water that she might ingest directly or indirectly, increased/decreased minerals/vitamtins/whatever, changing the pump infrastructure so as not to suck newly hatched cephs through the system, etc.)?
4) Anyone know the gestation period of mimic octopus eggs? By the way, I have no way of knowing when she was in the open ocean last, but if she came to me by the quickest possible route she has been out of the ocean at least 45 days - how long can a female ceph carry fertilized eggs before "laying" same?
5) Is there any kind of small fiber-sized (yet "affordable") underwater camera that I could insinuate into the "cave" to observe the process?
5) I understand that often octopuses will "work themselves to death" by not eating while caring for their gestating eggs, is there anything I can do to arrest this process and give her a chance to survive and the eggs a better chance to hatch and survive?
6) Please ask and answer any other questions that my current ignorance prevents my even knowing to ask.
Sorry for the length of this communique, but any help you might provide would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
David