Hope

IME, I don't think you have to worry about the hole if it is small and not accessble by climbing up something. Keep the skimmer.

The perfect feeding routine has not been established and I think most of us go with watching how the animal eats and adjust. Roy recommends feeding every other or every third day but then giving multiple food items based on a VERY long lived bimac they kept at Berkeley. Most of ours eat daily with one day a week fasting. As they age, their appetite decreases but a female about to brood will comsume increasingly larger quantitys. Needless to say, if Hope only wants food every other day, then that is likely the schedule that suits her right now. If she is eating daily, then I would suggest fasting one day a week. Do note that when CaptFish tried to cut back on Legs food she went on a rampage and killed stuff she has ignored in the tank as well as showing aggression towards him. Once he started feeding her what she wanted she went back to a non-menapausal female :wink:

If remains are hard to remove, be sure you have a good clean up crew. I am very partial to orange brittle stars, thorny starfish and serpents. All are meat eating and only the orange brittle messes with the octos (looking for food scraps) and is quickly ignored or pushed away once the two acclimate. The orange brittles actually have a little personality (we call ours Pesky and Pesky II) and are sometimes daytime visible (and always at feeding time). Oddly, I have never had them bother a dieing octo.

I have only had one briareus that would play hide-and-seek for any period of time (Kooah) but it seems to be very common with the Aculeatus (and those little horns popping up can't help but put a huge grin on your face).
 
Thanks, she seems to be doing well, took a live fiddler last night, to the delight/amazement of my in-laws. I cannot believe the spots she gets herself into. She emerged from a hole in the live rock the size of a marble. So far, so good! I will add a couple of clean up animals this week. There are some hermits and six legged stars and a ton of micro brittles, but I think a larger brittle or two might help.
 
She took a store-bought shrimp today, reached up and took it right from my feeding tongs! Awesome. I think she is settling in well. While she was eating she turned sort of black and white polka-dotted, very cool!
 
amazing octo! I bought an indo from live aquaria and had a blast with her! Try putting in different weird toys (tank safe) and see if she goes for them. Are you sure it's a she? Have you touched her? Mine used to let me do that all the time, she was very friendly! Cheeky too, she would take frozen shrimp, but after I gave her live fiddlers she wouldn't take the frozen food! I lost a 3 or 4 day game of chicken and went to get more food. :nyah:

Anyway congrats on your octo!!
 
Thanks so much! Haven't tried to pet her... yet. Maybe this weekend. She's still pretty new, although she did come out to investigate my hand in the tank yesterday. I didn't try to touch her and she didn't get too close. We'll see....
 
Okay, so after the fine tutorial posted on the other page, I'm relatively sure that Hope is a boy! HE has the third arm tip curled up very clearly today. I promise to get my real video camera out this weekend!

 
I recommend letting them come to you rather than you touching them. Once they are comfortable touching you then slowly offer a touch back. Usually the mantle is less sensitive than an arm. If Hope accepts your touch but then pushes your hand away with her arm, remove it with her push so that she knows you understand. Then try somewhere else (like between the eyes).
 
I don't know what happened, but we are definately a leg short. I counted twice. He actually has a tiny little sprout of a leg coming in where his second (curled up) leg was. Could one of the crabs have pinched it off? Or would a powerhead be more likely? Should I take the powerhead out? Otherwise, he seems perfectly happy- still eating and cruising the tank. He seems much more comfortable in there now. I think he comes onto the glass when he wants food. At least it seems that way, he will come up and sit in the top corner and wait for me to feed him.
 
It is hard to say with the Abdopus. They can throw an arm and we seem to see them loose them more than other species. There is at least one species (and I fail to remember which one, but it was not this complex that was mentioned) that has a normal third arm until sexually mature and then throws it to grow the hectocotylus when sexually mature. Adopus is known to be able to detach an arm voluntarily if it is endangered. You might consider putting a sponge around your powerhead intake but this happens frequently and we have never isolated why.
 

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