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Wow, Kooah is already at 6 weeks, that went by fast. Have baby briareus been known to take frozen?
Kooah - O.briareus
- Thread starter DWhatley
- Start date
We have not had any successes with briareus during my participation in TONMO. Among the staff, Colin has a pictures of hatchlings from his site prior to TONMO but I don't know if any made it to adults, Ceph attempted some 20 years ago without success and Nancy was able to get one (unknowing that it was still alive) to 4 months. The youngest I know of to survive has been CaptFish's Legs and she was wild caught not tank hatched. Hatching has not been a problem and viable eggs produce active benthic young, they just don't survive long. Needless to say I am shooting from the hip armed only with the knowledge that we should be able to raise this species and two prior successes (the first better than the second) raising mercatoris hatchlings, the easiest octos to raise.
Egg Photo Update 6.5 weeks
I do not see much yolk (this assumes the opaque white on the arm side of the body is the yolk) left in the eggs. I did not get the best of views today but if you compare prior photos, you will note the absence of the opaque end. Full moon is the 27th so this is Neal's prediction on the beginning of hatching.
I found and setup my nets this weekend (and the two additional I ordered showed up in today's mail) but have not fully set up my little tanks, mostly I will put the nets in the larger tanks and sumps and isolate as many as I can accomodate, leaving the balance loose in Kooah's aquarium.
I do not see much yolk (this assumes the opaque white on the arm side of the body is the yolk) left in the eggs. I did not get the best of views today but if you compare prior photos, you will note the absence of the opaque end. Full moon is the 27th so this is Neal's prediction on the beginning of hatching.
I found and setup my nets this weekend (and the two additional I ordered showed up in today's mail) but have not fully set up my little tanks, mostly I will put the nets in the larger tanks and sumps and isolate as many as I can accomodate, leaving the balance loose in Kooah's aquarium.
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YAY! I love the pic of them all on the wall. Thats awesome! Good luck!
SWEET!!! I'm so jealous, even though they likely wont make it, I still woudl love to give it a try.
I suggest letting a few be cannibalistic, I am sure that is how Legs survived, feeding on her 5 siblings. That sounds horrible, but its one theory that I have.
I suggest letting a few be cannibalistic, I am sure that is how Legs survived, feeding on her 5 siblings. That sounds horrible, but its one theory that I have.
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That is so awesome! I would love to try raising octopus from eggs someday. For now, I think learning how to cultivate copepods would be a good learning experience, and as for using them, the corals in the 120g reef won't let them go to waste.
Question though, If they may be cannibalistic, then the siblings are definitely large food items - why is it so hard to provide live or dead food to raise them?
If I understand correctly these are a "large egg" variety and hatch benthic and would be easier to try to raise than a "small egg" variety which hatch planktonic.
I'm not sure of any of this as I'm still learning.
Question though, If they may be cannibalistic, then the siblings are definitely large food items - why is it so hard to provide live or dead food to raise them?
If I understand correctly these are a "large egg" variety and hatch benthic and would be easier to try to raise than a "small egg" variety which hatch planktonic.
I'm not sure of any of this as I'm still learning.
And Mom? is she still with the eggs?
So far Kooah is doing OK. She stopped taking shrimp about a week ago but ate pretty well until then. Today I see her sticking her arms out of the den at odd angles like she is cramped. I can't see any eggs most of the time and could not get a shot of the empty cases. When I did get a quick look, I saw a couple that had dark spots but if she has a bunch more they are far back under the LR and not the ones I have been monitoring.
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sulley;156395 said:
Kooah is Gone
Early this morning Kooah came out of her den, went to the corner with the Koralia and return water pipe and more or less wedged herself upside down in the corner. She lived maybe an hour more. I have not yet tried to open up her den to see if all the eggs have hatched but will do that shortly. Since Gill would perfer only alcohol as a preservative, I have not used formalin with this one and will include her in the package I send for buccal mass study (I hope the briareus are large enough for what they want to do).
Her death was different from my others in that it was quick after the eggs hatched, without a senescent period. I expected she would live longer, not shorter, than some of my others because she ate most of her brooding time. When I saw that she had stopped breathing, I reached in to retrieve her. The arms still reacted a little and the suckers more so. There was no strength in the arms and they hung loosely in the water column but one arm attached to my hand. When I touched her between the eyes there was a reaction and the eye closed. I waited to remove her from the water until all reaction stopped (maybe 5 minutes).
Laying her out for her final measurement photo, I was surprised on how small she was, how little her mantle was stretched and the existence of a loose "skin" layer that showed the diagnostic briareus green. The green (that shows blue in the young) around her eyes was also very visible even though I had not seen it while she was alive. Hopefully this will show in the photo.
I will start a new thread for the hatchlings and add Kooah's final measurement photo later (it is 8:15 AM and I have not yet gone to bed
).
Edit: April 16 2011
The use of alcohol only in a zip lock bag did not preserver the remains well after 10 months. I failed to take a photo but she was badly dehydrated, shrunken and brown in color. This may have been in part because the zip lock allowed alcohol to escape and be replaced by water but there were no leaks detected and the bag was still full of liquid.
Early this morning Kooah came out of her den, went to the corner with the Koralia and return water pipe and more or less wedged herself upside down in the corner. She lived maybe an hour more. I have not yet tried to open up her den to see if all the eggs have hatched but will do that shortly. Since Gill would perfer only alcohol as a preservative, I have not used formalin with this one and will include her in the package I send for buccal mass study (I hope the briareus are large enough for what they want to do).
Her death was different from my others in that it was quick after the eggs hatched, without a senescent period. I expected she would live longer, not shorter, than some of my others because she ate most of her brooding time. When I saw that she had stopped breathing, I reached in to retrieve her. The arms still reacted a little and the suckers more so. There was no strength in the arms and they hung loosely in the water column but one arm attached to my hand. When I touched her between the eyes there was a reaction and the eye closed. I waited to remove her from the water until all reaction stopped (maybe 5 minutes).
Laying her out for her final measurement photo, I was surprised on how small she was, how little her mantle was stretched and the existence of a loose "skin" layer that showed the diagnostic briareus green. The green (that shows blue in the young) around her eyes was also very visible even though I had not seen it while she was alive. Hopefully this will show in the photo.
I will start a new thread for the hatchlings and add Kooah's final measurement photo later (it is 8:15 AM and I have not yet gone to bed
).Edit: April 16 2011
The use of alcohol only in a zip lock bag did not preserver the remains well after 10 months. I failed to take a photo but she was badly dehydrated, shrunken and brown in color. This may have been in part because the zip lock allowed alcohol to escape and be replaced by water but there were no leaks detected and the bag was still full of liquid.
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RIP Kooah.
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