[Octopus]: DaVinci - O. hummelincki

[sirreal]

Hey Kim. How is DaVinci doing. Is he/she out much. I know hes no acclimated yet but I am so curious about him. D if you read this what size tank does the hummelincki require. I have a 55 just about ready to go lol. Kim I sure hope to see many pics. I brought my SLR camera to the shop to try to get better pics of my 2 octos But no promises about pic quality Damm camera has way to many buttons and lenses. I thought I had 3 macro lenses and come to find out I have 6. I downloaded the manual for it and its 203 pages. LOL Did he move to a dif den?

 

[DWhatley]

Sirreal, Lovin' it (the camera confusion) . I HIGHLY suggest a tripod. As much trouble as they are (less if you can use a table top model but I find I can't) finally breaking down and using one has made a huge difference in the quality of focus in my pictures.

A 55 would be fine for O. hummelincki. Bigger never hurts and they can reach 18" with an extended arm if they are on the larger side but this is as big as we have seen them and the 18" is an extended arm not the much shorter relaxed position.

 

[sirreal]

D I will have to dig through the garage to find the tripod. I do have a mono pod with the camera but I think I would like to leave the camera set up ready to shoot. My camera does auto focus but once again I am not to sure how to do it. lol Its funny I am kind of a techy guy. Love computers and electronic gadgets but this camera is crazy. My dad used this set up to take closeup pics of buttons. Yes I said buttons!!! My mother is the president of the fl button society. Hard to believe but they are very collectable. Sorry Kim didnt mean to steal your thread

 

[DWhatley]

To avoid further hijacking of DaVinci's journal and still be able to talk about how to get a decent photo when your are not a photographer, I am copying the camera related posts to our new photography sticky in the Octopus' Den ->Photo of the Month->Photography - Cephs, Tanks and Fossils

 

[sirreal]

I really want to hear how DaVinci is doing. I was on Aquatic Connections web site last night and they have more octos. I am really hoping they have more hummelinckis. You had said he came shipped well and with me being in FL the shipping is easy. After reading and watching all the videos of Octavia - O. hummelincki I really want one and I think that Aquatic Connection is my best chance to get one. Do you remember who you dealt with.

 

[Teacher Kim]

Sure, go ahead and have a conversation without me! Here's a DaVinci update! He stayed in the barnacle hole all day. Early that evening I decided to try and feed him a frozen fiddler crab. I wound up sticking it in the barnacle just to his right. He looked at it but did nothing. The next thing I know the shore shrimp are all over the crab and then DaVinci snagged one, ate it and threw away the left over parts! It blew me away! I saw him do this 3 times!! Crazy!

The next morning I couldn't find him anywhere. Finally, late in the afternoon there he was, this time sitting just on top of the opening to a large snail shell on the sand. He went in and out of the shell for a couple of hours and then finally went inside. I was too busy to look for him yesterday and today.

I'm on vacation for the next week and am looking forward to finding out if he comes out more with the children gone. I am assuming that he will, but he sure hasn't appeared shy so far, so we'll see! I am still trying to get a good pic of him, but not yet. Hey, just had a thought.... a tripod might help improve my blury pictures! Wonder where that Idea came from!!

 

[Teacher Kim]

Sirreal, When I called Aquatic Connection Live, I talked to a young man named Stephan. I don't think he knew much about what species DaVinci was, but he did walk over to him and verified his size, general color, etc... You have to make your purchase on a computer so you can sign a care paper. I gave him my name and told him I would make the purchase right away. He said he would look for order and make sure I got the one we had talked about. (I can only assume he followed through! LOL)

When I talked to the other man, didn't get his name, he indicated that they use they only use one supplier and that he specifically orders "atlantic species" because he likes their colors. He said there is one species in particular that he likes, but that he couldn't remember it's exact name. He said that he sometimes orders the "pigmys" also. That is all I can share. It seemed like the man that does the ordering at least pays some attention to what he gets in. When I got Ziggy, at first we had absolutely no idea where he came from! LOL! We will have to keep track and see if anyone else orders from there and what they get! TTYL

 

[Teacher Kim]

Yesterday I decided to add a couple of toys and a dark plastic bottle with openings on both ends to DaVinci's tank. This morning I woke up to find him inside the bottle! Here is a pic. (D, I've been trying to figure out how to get the pics to post correctly. This one says JPG, not zip, so I'm hoping it might work!!

 

[sirreal]

Thats so cool. Thank you for the info about Aquatic Connection. As much as I want one of the O hummelincki I am going to go Crabbing with a buddy and get one that way. D has given me A breakdown to ID what I find. I will document all that I find and from what enviroment like how deep, what they were eating, size, specie. Anything else I can see. Maybe arms missing. and Pics. I am going to get a water proof camera because I have been warned that I will get wet.

 

[DWhatley]

This one says JPG, not zip, so I'm hoping it might work!!

Indeed it did, no lesson may need to be incorporated in our time in SanFrancisco

I am going to get a water proof camera because I have been warned that I will get wet.

If it is in the budget, get something that has image stabalization . More camera notes here

 

[Teacher Kim]

Something exciting just happened! It's 5 pm here in California and still light out. I have both lights on DaVinci's tank and haven't seen him since day before yesterday. I decided to feed the shore shrimp living in the tank, so I got a small amount of flake food and mixed it in with the water. Before I was done DaVinci suddenly popped out of a barnacle near my hand and made me actually jump! He'd been using a shell sitting on the sand as a den, so I didn't expect to see him up there! He just sat there on top of the barnacle looking at me! I quickly got a frozen fiddler out and thawed it. When I got back to tank he was still there. I put it on the end of a stick and slowly moved it towards him. When it got close, he moved into a barnacle hole. I stuffed the crab gently into the hole and he immediately took it! He is now sitting there eating it right in front of me!

So, I had noticed that Orange would stick an arm out of her den often when I was feeding red flake food to the shore shrimp. Orange never came out, but I definitely think that DaVinci was reacting to the flake food. The last two times I have fed him, I fed the shrimp first, thinking that it might be a good signal for him. I think it worked! The other times, I put the crab just inside the shell he's been using as a den. When I checked back it would be gone.

I am so surprised that he came all the way out and in all the lighting too! I only have the bright light on for about 5 hours each day. His light has moon lights that are on 24/7. I turn on the blue light at 7am and the white light at noon. Then the white light goes off at 5pm and the blue goes off at about 7pm.

Am going to post the pic I took. It's not that great, but it does show him just to the right of the blue lego. His eyes are kind of sticking up! You can also see one of his arms right below his eyes.

OK "D", here goes attempt #2 at posting a pic correctly!! OK, am having trouble finding where to change a zip to a jpg! That's what I did last time! Will post pic as soon as I figure it out!!

 

[DWhatley]

With this species, make sure it has full darkness overnight to sleep. We noticed with our first hummelincki that he would get very nervous if his red night light was any color other than red (power outages would reset the color) during his sleep time. After a stormy summer, we just eliminated the night light altogether. Additionally, I had to be sure not to do laundry after he went to sleep because the vibration - laundry room is behind the tank with a shared wall - would wake him up and he would pace. This one needs its beauty rest

 

[Teacher Kim]

Got it! It's an easy light to unplug! Will start tonight! After all, you're right, he does need his beauty sleep! Am going to try posting the pic again. I think maybe I figured it out..... again! Nope! Will try again in the morning!

 

[DWhatley]

I don't really think this will help because I don't think your issue is with the forum so much as the format of your images but look at the instructional post I created to see it if gives you a hint to solve your problem. What I am missing to be able to help is understanding why your images are in compressed (.zip) format at all. This is not normal for images coming from most cameras (most will be .jpg). How do you transfer your images to your computer and what kind (PC or MAC) of computer are you using?

 

[Teacher Kim]

I take my pictures with my I Phone and then send them to my PC. It's an HP and has windows 7 on it. I have been playing around with sending the pics both by text message and also by email. I was sending them by text when they were showing up correctly. Then they just started showing up in the zip format. I have no idea what happened!

The other day I found a way to change that one pic from zip to jpg and it worked, but I haven't been able to do that again since that day! I have been trying really hard to figure it out! I just sent a new pic to computer again now. Am going to check and see if it works on next post.... here goes....