Impulse Octo Buy Journal

Jack_Lucas

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Hello all!

My name is Jack!

Been an aquarist for a long time. But after my divorce, i moved from florida to ny and left my 170 gallon and many other small aquariums behind...

for the past month ive been getting a small aquarium ready, no fish only 6 hermit crabs, some live sand, some live rock...

well today all that changed, I just received a baby octo! Its acclimating in the tank now, will probably only do a 45 min acclimation. Have the lights off...

any idea on the species?

 

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Yeah "D" its doing exactly that pose in the den. looks almost like a coin pressed against the rock...

When I flashed the light it immediately reacted. changing colors, still in its muted reddish brown range...

Also when I look at Mercatoris on the web I definitely see the resemblance.

If it were this species are you suggesting that it could be nearing adult?
 
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here is a picture. Sorry its so blurry, couldn't get the focus on my phone.

My tank LED light is RGB, with a wide color range, would running the tank with a red light at night be better than the moonlight blue?

 

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With the nocturnals I always use red light that I leave on 24/7. Most of the tanks also have a normal white/blue daylight lighting that goes off at 9:00 PM. The reasoning for the red over another low/moon light LED is the understanding that red is close to invisible to all cephalopods and you are more likely to see them under red lighting than any other color. The reason I leave it on all night is that they can still detect it but that is as dark as it gets so they don't wait for for full darkness to come out. On some tanks I only light half the tank and have found that the young ones take up residency on the lit side but usually den on the dark side as adults (but still come to the lit side)

Blue light, on the other hand is a color that many cephs are sensative to (this may be for deep water animals and may not be for the ones we keep) and may be brighter than white light, discouraging a nocturnal.

This was something Edie Widder mentioned in her discusion of the eJelly and the Medusa vehicle used to attract the Giant Squid in last Sunday's Discovery documentary. We have had members try using blue but only recently did one of our members experiment and report. He initial took my suggestion to set up a red light for his nocturnal macropus once the animal seemed adjusted, he tried a blue light to see if the animal acted differently. Great experiment and I encourage others to try different lighting in the same way BUT suggest you start with red.

I have found that a fairly bright red light works well for viewing (and miserably for photography) and have used different variations. The simplest, cheapest and easiest to set up is to obtain a cone shaped (ugly) shop light with a hanging clip from your local hardware store. Also at most hardware stores and at Wal-mart, you will find red screw in fluorescent bulbs (often called party lights). The shop light's cone shape keeps the light out of your eyes and focuses on the tank but the red fluorescent bulbs have a standard screw base and can be used in any fixture supporting a 13 watt bulb.

A more attractive alternate but dimmer and more expensive light is one of the programmable LED moon lights that offers a selection of colors. This is nice to have when you want a moon light on the tank and the next animal you have is not nocturnal. One feature I suggest looking for is a unit that will keep your setting when the power goes out. I used one for a diurnal octo but removed it from the tank because of frequent short outages that summer. The one I had defaulted to white light when first turned on and Octane would pace the tank under stress when we did not realize his light had changed. This would be my choice if it was brighter but the fluorescent gives far better viewing.

Lastly, any light that you can make red works. On the tank I used for my mercs, I had an outdoor light and put high temperature vellum (high temp material required or you will have a fire concern even though the light was a lower heat bulb) inside the lens. Later I painted the inside of the lens red with several coats of red paint. Both worked well but I preferred the light of the vellum over the paint. White LED's with a red lens is also an alternative and I use a dome light on one side of one my split tank but wiring them up is a bit of a pain.
 
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I'll not venture a guess on age. IME, an animal in final senescence will rarely color and will not hold dark coloration at all. However, this happen pretty quickly at the end. The other thing to watch for is it being out in full daylight. This usually the signal for me to know its time is very short (a day or two only not even a week).

Another thing that may be worth mentioning is that I have found females to choose a den and stay in it most of their lives. This makes them rather easy to hand feed but they are not very active. My males have tended to be more active, swimming about at night and changing dens every couple of weeks. Sexing them, like most other octos is easiest by looking for the curled third arm to the right (clockwise as you orient your eyes with the octos) and they often have enlarged suckers near the mouth. If it is female, she may not come out much to be able to see the arm or suckers.

This is the one warm water species that has been more or less easier to raise than any other (the Pacific bimaculoides is actually the one with the biggest success numbers). If it is female and has mated you may get this opportunity :biggrin2: Note that easier does not mean easy. The successes we have had allowed a small number of hatchlings to survive and mate, producing offspring that also produced limited viable hatchlings. Lifespan is 8 - 12 months and we have seen 14 months from one tank born.
 
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quick update this morning I still saw the red feeder crab hanging around in the rocks, but one of my Hermit crabs was not so lucky the octo is holding him in the den... I can only assume he is slowly devouring him as we speak...

Is it normal for octos to feed on hermits?

I have a full range RGB LED will start with the red light cycle tonight

thanks!
 
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Many people report their octos eating hermits but mine only seem to eat them when first introduced to the tank. After they acclimate (the first month or so) mine, except one vulgaris that ate any and everything the moved in her tank, have left them alone once a regular feeding time of easy food is established. When I raised hatchlings, they would eagerly take the meat out of the shell (difficult to extract even dead).
 
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this morning I wake up and see red feeder crab pieces all over the tank, but the octo isnt in the convenient den anymore. =( So i can't see it.

I know keeping octos is very difficult. Hate to ask but when they decease, do they float?

I shifted from the moonlight blue to the red light, and the red light was on all night...
 
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havent seen the octo for like 3 days. No longer in that den. How do I know if its still alive without moving rocks around? More importantly, what are the sure fire signs the octo has deceased? =(
 
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Jack,
Sorry, for the late reply. Octopuses don't float when they die but often will be found in the open on the substrate. With the smaller ones (especially nocturnals) can it be difficult to tell but moving rocks is a last resort and even THEN you can't be sure (we have numerous reports of moving rocks, not finding a carcass and then the octo reappearing).

The first thing I recommend is to put live food in the tank, preferably a feeder crab. If you find pieces of exoskeleton and emptied body parts within 2 days, the animal is alive and has simply moved dens. This is quite likely if the animal is male and locating a giant purple barnacle cluster will provide a viewable den that may be chosen on the next move.

The reverse is not necessarily true. My theory is that they are easier to catch about the time they are ready to brood because they are out hunting more to prepare for the brood fast. Whether my theory holds water is for someone else to study (I have also wondered about environment changes pushing them to brood early) :wink: but often females brood soon after being placed in a tank. If you can locate the animal without disrupting the live rock, sometimes an early brooding female will accept small food offerings for part of the time but this is rare. Typically they will not eat at all but will survive until the eggs hatch or should have hatched in the case of infertile eggs (they will produce and lay eggs even if they have never mated). IME, a female that can be coaxed to eat during her brood will live slightly longer than the ones that don't eat but I suspect there is a relationship between being able to eat and the number of eggs produced. If this is a female O. mercatoris, it is a large egg species and the chances are high that you will have hatchlings in a month or so (brood time is species and water temperature dependent) that have potential for tank raising. We have had no success with the small egg species that produce planktonic young that are not fully formed.

Lastly, we have had some to simply disappear. If you have an active cleanup crew, they will dispose of the remains but you can monitor the tank for an ammonia/nitrite spike. Chances are, at this point, it is alive and living deep inside the live rock if your rock has pockets large enough to use as a den.
 
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i did find an exoskeleton of a hermit crab, but oddly enough the two red feeder crabs are alive...the feeder crabs just stay there in one spot, so this got me to think that my water had gone bad, but did a test everything is normal... I had thought about the ammonia spike being a good indicator.
 
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So I went looking for the octo in the rocks couldnt find him... I did find him in the bottom of the refugium in the filter. =( he didnt make it... no wonder the water params stayed so perfect... bummer. i had the lid of the tank locked down, got out the filter. =(
 
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