Heidi - A. aculeatus

~Flighty~

Blue Ring
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Mar 22, 2010
Messages
35
Hi all,

Just wanted to give an update on our octopus. Previous threads below

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?19941-Advice-for-species-selection

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?20035-Live-aquaria-indo-id-please

We got her at the beginning of April, so it has been a bit over one month so far. We named her Heidi because she hides so well (my five year old daughter's idea :smile: )

From what I can see she is a full grown female aculeatus.

She shares a tank with 3 cleaner shrimp, some muscles, and large and small snails. She hasn't bothered any of these as far as I can tell, even when the shrimp share her food. She has hunted down and eaten all of the shore crabs we added with her though, even the tiny 1/2 inch ones.

She lives deep inside a large piece of very porous live rock and can stick a tentacle out of just about any hole she wants.

We have a bag of 30-50 shrimp from the grocery store. We offer her one just about every day, but she usually stays in her rock and only comes out every other day. Sometimes she is outside waiting for us on feeding days. She usually eats 1/2-3/4 of the shrimp at a time.

We have seen some really great behaviors out of her including tenting over a rock and rapidly sticking her tentacles in all of the holes trying to flush out food. Bunches of copepods scurry out when she does this.

There is one behavior that I have not figured out yet. She comes up to the glass or sits on her rock and sticks one or two tentacles out horizontally and then vertically over and over. I feel like she's trying to tell me the tank isn't level or something :roll: Here is a utube link to a clip of that

This is her out on the cleaner magnet. That is a large mag float for size perspective that she is sitting on.

Here she goes for the food and takes it stick and all. I was trying to get her to hang out in one of her bottles so I could photograph her underside while she ate, but she had other ideas today.

Tiny closeup clip of her settling in to eat

Would love to hear what you guys think and I can post other vids or photos if you want them. I have a neet one of her interacting with a shrimp that I'll try to find.
 
Kooah (O.briareus) used to do the "cat tail swish" with her arms too. I don't recall it with any of my others and I never came up with an idea as to what it meant.
 
Heidi is so awesome. She is getting to be more and more interactive. Yesterday we "played" for over an hour. She definitely did not want to eat the scallop I tried giving her, but she spent a long time pushing it up and down the feeding stick. She is eating a lot of frozen shrimp though.

She has gotten used to the kids playing in the room and the TV going, but she reacts strongly to my husband and one of our dogs going by. The dog that she reacts to is black and my husband was wearing a dark blue shirt and jeans, so maybe it is the color.

If someone could kindly tell me how to embed a uTube vid here I'll stick it on
 
To add a video from pretty much anywhere, copy the http:// address (NOT THE EMBED code) in to your clipboard (highlight and then either right click and select copy or highlight and use the key combination CTRL C). In the TONMO edit area, click the little film strip icon just above the typing area. A little window will pop up. Paste the contents of your clip board (right click and select paste or the key combination CTRL V). Click the OK button on the window. What you will see is: [video.. ] http://your video address [/..video] (less the dots that are there to let you see what I am trying present not get translated). Save your reply. The software will read the video / end video tags and you will see the embedded video.

Octopuses are not believed to be able to see color but they CAN determine shades. There was another member that seemed to think that wearing a dark shirt was negative to his octo but changing to a white T-Shirt resolved the problem. I have wanted to play with the idea but have not come up with a good test in addition to not having diurnal octos in awhile.
 
Geeze, I should have figured that out myself :rolleyes:
Thank you very much for the help!
Here is the video of heidi reacting to my husband walking by the tank and the dog going by. Please ignore the sounds of the kids watching scooby doo in the background. I left the sound in so you could hear the dog etc.
Husband at 0:15, dog at 0:40
 
I was watching for an eye bar but didn't see one (discussion on other thread about the eyebar possibly being a universal irritation sign).

You can peal the shrimp if you want. They don't eat the shell and there is less to get loose in the tank that needs immediate cleaning.
 
We have such a big tank system (750 gallons or so) I don't worry about the shell and small amounts of uneaten food fouling the tank. We transitioned away from a full blown heavily fed reef to just the octopus, so I figure the life in the rock needs a fair chance at some scavenging anyway. I also like watching the activities of her shelling the shrimp and taking out the trash. I did hand her a tail with a shell on it once and then took the shell off of another tail in front of her, then offered the unshelled tail. She tossed the shell-on tail she had and took the new one from my hand. She's no dummy :smile:

I will have to look for the eye bar in some pics. I don't recall her ever displaying that. Her color that I take as "grumpy" or "annoyed" is flashing dark black with bright white circular spots all over. (pic attached)

The dark/light camo with pointy skin seems to be her "startled" color.
 

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