Grover

[sedna]

Congratulations, Grover! Good luck, A.M.!

 

[gholland]

Excellent! I will eagerly be awaiting the hourly (hunh? oh... ummm... daily? right. ) -- make that daily -- updates!

 

[Animal Mother]

I don't know where to start. I yanked all the chaeto from the refugium and put it in the tank, cut off the refugium pump. Mr. Wrasse is awake.. woke up between going to the airport and coming back... going to try to catch him... won't catch him, but he'll hide and probably stay hidden under the sand for quite a while so I won't have to worry about him eating them. Fish psychology.. hehe.

We have two 1 gallon containers, they're round but not spherical. I'm considering either A) drilling small holes in them for circulation and placing the babies in them... thinking the babies are just going to flow out of said holes. I could use mesh over the holes, but then I think the babies would just get stuck in that.
Or B) fill the containers with water from the tank, syphon out what babies I can into the containers and plug an air hose into them for circulation. Then I'll need to have plenty of water on hand for frequent water changes due to feeding...

I think B is the best option of the two...

I was not expecting this for another week or so. No matter how much reading I've done on the subject I was just not prepared for this at all. Honestly I'm contemplating the point of putting resources into this particular project knowing how unlikely success is.

 

[gholland]

Two quick questions for future reference... how long did the eggs take to hatch and what was the average water temp?

 

[cuttlegirl]

I think B is the best option of the two...

I think B is your best option too... If you can keep the surface area to water volume ratio high then you can get oxygen from the air. In other words, keep the water shallow...

 

[Animal Mother]

Okay, thanks for the suggestion.

Little shooting stars..

 

[cuttlegirl]

They are really tiny.

 

[Animal Mother]

Two quick questions for future reference... how long did the eggs take to hatch and what was the average water temp?

I don't know exactly when the eggs were laid. They hatched sometime during the night... between 11pm and 6am. From looking back at my posts Grover built the den 4 weeks ago, so I should have expected it this soon.

The tank temp ranges from 76 in the morning to 78 in the mid-afternoon.

 

[Animal Mother]

They are really tiny.

Really they're bigger than I thought they would be. I can see their eyes and their syphon. No chromatophores that I can tell. They just look like little ghosts.

I think I'm going to buy 2 Koralia #1's and add to the 2 #2's that are already in there. The #3 is worrying me as it's pretty powerful. Seeing them getting sucked in... I've seen a couple of what I think might be dead smashed babies but I can't tell, possibly just debris of sorts. I'm going to aim for a circular current for now until I get the jugs set up.

 

[Animal Mother]

I take that back. Some are firing up chromatophores. I had hoped maybe I was catching some that were eating, but upon closer inspection they do indeed have little red spots.

I caught probably 80. There are still a few more in the tank. I used a turkey baster to remove them. I won't try to remove all of them from the tank. I will just get lower powered pumps to keep the circulation in there.

 

[monty]

and congrats. Sorry I've procrastinated on creating a "raising octos from eggs" forum...

 

[Animal Mother]

Thanks and no harm done.

I purchased frozen rotifers, cyclops, and a pack of live pods at the LFS. I have the local MAS on alert that I need some live tiny foods.

I put a few drops of each in the jugs. I am alternating the airline for now, so that they aren't constantly being pummeled. I may add some small holes to the line to let some pressure escape before getting to the end. I have lots of air pumps around here but they're all monsters.

 

[Animal Mother]

I split them with the owner of my nearest LFS. They have a solid source for pods and a little experience of octopus keeping. I consolidated the ones I'm keeping into one container. The ones in the tank started thinning out quite noticeably so I captured those that I could find.

So far I haven't noticed any fatalities in the jug. Probably 60 of them if not more. When I see a few that appear dead on the bottom they jet off. I have the air hose set so that the water has a medium flow. After removing several ounces of water with the baster I added more live pods. Then I replaced the water I had taken out with new saltwater.

 

[Animal Mother]

I'm seeing a few I'm pretty sure are dead now. For the most part though, I believe the majority are still alive.

A member of our local MAS that has an actual phytoplankton business gave me a couple of jugs of live motile phyto and some tubes of "Rutherford's" to culture... going to have to do some research on that and get those set up and going. I added a helping of the live phyto and increased the overall water volume in the jug to help dilute any waste. Going to do one more water change before bed and dose a little more phyto to keep food in the jug overnight.

Hope they make it through the night!

 

[Animal Mother]

Seeing more babies popping up in the display now.