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Disturbing a new octopus?

I was never able to get either of mine to be active at any reasonable hour. You might be able to shift its schedule somewhat by turning the lights on early in the morning, keeping the room fully dark as soon as it is dark outside and feeding just before you go to bed. It is worth the experiment, especially starting now before it finds a rhythm in its new environment. I was limited in my ability to experiment because my tanks are in rooms that did not allow me to control the lighting on a regular basis.

For night viewing you can use red lights. Red is miserable for photography but it is a color they don't see. Blue may be even brighter than white to their eyes. Don't try to leave white or blue lights on 24/7 as this will definitely stress her and likely end her life early. However, I typically leave a red light on all night (or 24/7 if I don't have a timer).

Except for the extreme nocturnal part, this is one of my favorites for interaction. Both Puddles and Beldar would come to my hand to be stroked for parts of their lives. My theory on octo "enjoyment" for being touched is not so much curiosity or friendly attachment but the thought that their skin may itch and our hands are softer than live rock. If you decide to allow physical contact, I recommend not trying to touch her but let her approach you. First contact is usually quite memorable as both of you will jump (try to limit your reaction, not easy). I recommend not using food as an enticement, they are curious enough to approach you if you leave your fingers in the water for a time and you don't want her to mistake your fingers for food.
 
The tank is in my living room (it's actually my sofa table) so keeping the room fully dark while I'm in there isn't really practical. I'll maybe try to add something on top of the tank to make it at least a bit darker to see if she comes out more/earlier.

I would love to interact with her but I'm still a bit afraid of her :oops:
I touch one of the tentacles when she was in the bucket and she got a good grip on me (with only one sucker I believe!) and I think I would die if a whole tentacle got on me. After reading that the actually can bite, I'm not less afraid of her.

It's funny since I'm used to "dangerous animals". I have stingrays, big gars and even an alligator snapping turtle. No problem with handling them. But those tentacles... :-/
 
No I haven't. Since all my animals usually have "bert" in their names I assumed the octopus should have that too. But it doesn't really fit a female...

Today she was active from 6 am to 11:20 am. Definitely better times for me, but I guess that's a bad sign that she's getting old?
 
I accidentally found out what rock she was under yesterday, I saw one of the tentacles stick out.
Can I assume she uses the same rock every day? So I know where to put the food.
 
I accidentally found out what rock she was under yesterday, I saw one of the tentacles stick out.
Can I assume she uses the same rock every day? So I know where to put the food.

Mine has one rock it favors since day two of being in his tank. I shine a light under there every morning to make sure he's under there just in case he escaped while I was sleeping. I'm paranoid. I'll offer him food but I have better success offering when he's out. I'll swing the crab his way and let go and he chases it, I think he likes the hunt.

As for the staying out during the day, my last octopus did this before it died but it did this every day before it died. So I'd worry if she keeps doing it. In my opinion, that is.

You can name her Bertha!
 
She's not "out during the day" so to speak. She's just out a lot longer than the first days. She was out until about 11 am today too. But the rest of the day the tank is basically dead.
Maybe it's just the time she likes to be active?
 
Different octos have different denning patterns. The female O. mercatoris (dwarf) I have had chose a den and almost never left (I fed them there so they rarely hunted) where the males all stayed a day or two in one place then move on to a varied selection of places. My larger octos seem to stay in one place for a week or more but have at least one alternate that they will gravitate to. With one female merc, I spotted her leaving her den for roughly an hour (but chose a location close by) so a serpent star could clean her den :biggrin2:.
 
What, how much and how often is she eating? What color is she displaying? I would love to have this one (or any) negate what I have observed from only two of them.
 
She eats about 1-2 blue clams (Mytilus edulis) everyday. Today she ate 1 clam and a piece of squid.
She switches between dark red and white/pale turquoise. I think I scared her today, she turned from the white/pale turquoise to dark red with white spots.
When she sleeps she's mostly turquoise as far as I can see, she's obviously pretty hidden so I can only see parts of her.
I actually got some quality time with her today, she was very active and at the end I got to see her dig out a cave under one of the rocks.
 
The really attractive dark red with bright white spots does seem to be their startled look. I only saw it once or twice with Beldar and never with Puddles. It is kind of a shame it is a negative reaction because the coloration is very nice.
 

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