Female S. bandensis looks strange

[msoctopuslady]

Hello all,

We have a mating pair of S. bandensis cuttles in a display tank at the aquarium where I work and the female looks kind of odd. Her head is small but her eyes are big -- almost like they're kind of bulging out of her. The skin on some of her arms seems to be gone, like it got stripped or peeled off. She's been like this for weeks. She eats well, but she doesn't seem to be a particularly strong swimmer (she's gotten stuck to our Vortech propellor pump twice). She's been laying eggs almost every day but none of them are viable. I've never seen the male attack her, but I've seen them mate several times, and but she never seems to like it when the male gets a hold of her, ha ha!

Is her physical appearance indicative of something more serious? Is this just what a female looks like when she's breeding?

Also, I'll try to get a picture of her when I can, but she's very shy and doesn't come out of her hiding spots very often.

Thank you, everyone!

 

[Thales]

Hi and Welcome to TONMO!

Pics would be really helpful. How old is she? I have seen missing skin and it could be caused by a number of things - combat, 'pacing' against the glass, self mutilation, ust an aspect of senescence, or damage from the vortech. How long have you been waiting on the eggs to determine if they are viable?

 

[msoctopuslady]

Working on pics -- she was hiding under some live rock today and she didn't want to come out!

She's about eight months old, and "pacing" against the glass certainly makes sense. She does that quite a lot. But then again, so is the male, and his arms are fine. I don't think it was the vortech, since her arms were looking bad before she got stuck to it.

In terms of an amount of time we wait on the eggs, um...we don't really have a time limit. We just wait for them to swell up, but then never do. They always wither away.