Katy's first octopus! Species?

djkaty

Vampyroteuthis
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Jul 16, 2010
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Hi guys!

So today after a 7-month wait I finally got an octopus, he looks very healthy to my untrained eye, I'm drip acclimating him as we speak and will keep posting to this thread for a while.

Videos and pictures uploading as we speak.

The information I have (which I don't really believe is accurate) is:

- Octopus is supposedly 3-5 months old
- Came from Indonesia (but might be from the Phillippines or Bali)

- His 'head' (I don't know what you call it, the part where all the organs are) is about 2cm long
- Arms are about 6-8cm long (although difficult to measure right now as he is mostly curled up)

- Light brown in colour currently

- The species list said "O. vulgaris, O. aegina or O. luten" but if the age is right then it must be a dwarf species

More to follow in the next minutes and hours.
 
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Hi Katy, and :welcome: to you new little octopus!
The arms look much longer in your photos. It looks pretty stressed, I see cork screwing. Just take it slow, I had one do this in acclimation but once I got it in the tank it relaxed. Shipping is hard on them.
Staying tunned...
Where did you get it from?
 
Well I'm not a good judge of distance so the arms may well be longer.

I am drip acclimating it really really slowly, it'll probably be 3 or 4 hours. Never done it before though so I hope I'm doing it right (just going off what I've read on the net).

Just secured the outtakes and intake on the aquarium. He has swum around momentarily so he seems ok. I will take another video when I release him into the tank.

I got it from my 'local' pet store (some distance away), ordered it months ago. It's the first octopus they've ever had, as I was walking through the store with it every single member of staff came out to look at him :smile: (he was only there for 3 hours, I instructed them to call me so I could pick it up immediately when it arrived)

Any idea what species it is?
 
from the video, that octopus seems to be having trouble breathing. I'd suggest getting an air stone in that bag with him, but I think there's a danger of causing the PH to crash suddenly by doing that. I don't have any experience acclimating commercially purchased octopus, but I'd be tempted to do a 50%-100% addition of tank water to that bag immediately, in case the water in the bag has low oxygen. More experienced people please chime in.
 
I'm sticking with my guess from the other night, Aculeatus, but to be honest I cant see him well enough to say. But when I hear from Indonesia and I see that it has long arms Aculeatus is my first guess just because it is what we primarily see.

:welcome: little one
 
Ok, how do you tell it has difficulty breathing?

CaptFish: if you forward to about 4:30 in the video I took the top off for a moment, you can see him quite clearly then.
 

Ok, how is his breathing now? He has had two lots of 50% of my tank water changes in that tub now. (you'll have to strain your eyes to see the outline, sorry for that)
 
Sorry I didn't see th labored breathing, when I watched the video, the phone rang. If I had to make a judgment call, you have been acclimating for 2 hours already, If still laboring, I'd release it. I have always used an airstone until the rescent PH issues were brought up. :-/
 
Ok, going to release him now and try to film it. Tank conditions (water was changed this morning) are:

Temp - 26C
SG - 1.023
pH - 8.0 (why is this so low?! It's usually 8.2 or 8.3)
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0.025ppm
Nitrate -
 
I run mine at SG 1.025/1.026 they need full strength sea water.
Nitrite should be at zero, I have never seen them register on a test after initial cycle, someone else can chime in on this.
PH- have you had your lights on or off? It is normal for PH to drop at night.
My PH would run close to 7 if I didn't use buffers. You may need to look into that. I use a 2 part alk and calcium.
I am keeping my fingers crossed.
 

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