Count your blessings, what are the odds they'd den up where you can see them. No fair you get all the cool octopuses.
I am ordering a couple from Tom today, that is unless you got the last 2. Great photos, stay'in tuned.
I snapped these with the cellphone when 'A' was crawling out for the first time. B. stayed in the breeder net till i went to bed the I assume made its way to the rocks.
Still going with female for A as I see no signs of enlarged suckers on any of the front 4 arms (they show up best when stuck to the tank wall) and no curled up 3rd arm (second arm doesn't count). Do note that I have not much better than a 50/50 record on initially calling the sex ( improving though)
I have had a boy named Sue (SueNami) and a girl named Beldar but by calling Sue SueNami and Beldar Bel we sort of stepped around the obvious missed sex calls (to be fair, SueNami's third arm was amputated all the way to the webbing when he arrived and the assumption was a male would have protected that arm but perhaps it was a female that decided to keep it ).
Wow, this is very interesting. While I wait, looking at an empty tank, I can live vicariously though your postings.I have time to fine tune things. How big og an opening can these little buggers get through, 1/16" or smaller? I think I need to cover my overflo with plastic screen, anything else is too big. Capt, how did you cover your return's? On my other tank I used plastic screen secured w/ zip tie but it gets fowled w/algea and stuff, a real pain to keep clear.
I type too slow, I misses the whole conversation. I like Alpha and Beta it goes along with "A" "B" you are already using. I remember a move with George C. Scott years ago with dolphins that had these names.
IME you can lower your tank water level beteen 1 and 2 inches below the top of the tank and add a lip around the edge (roughly 3") for merc-proofing. Remember, these are nocturnals and they won't like light so if you can't block off something comfortably, keep a small light (like a night light) in that area (they HAVE been known to crawl into nano sumps on a regular basis). Leaving a red light on 24/7 may also be the reason I have never had problems with the mercs exploring too high in the tank or climbing up my open Skilter filtration.
I always liked the names of our mandarins Harry, Who and Dini. We still have Harry but Who and Dini are now available (we actually started with the names because the two females would disappear but the names are more fitting for escape artists.).
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