Kooah's Hatchlings - O.briareus

[DWhatley]

I am thinking 3-4 months is the ideal time to get them and this seems to be the transition from rapid growth rate to the slower adult maturity. I did not put the mercs in the main tank until they were 5 months but little Wiley was able find enough food in th main tank almost from hatching (he kept escaping the net). Oddly, I found and moved him to the smaller tank at about 5 months though. The chart I referenced above also had information on joubini (but mercs were combined in that description and since it was a large egg species comparison chart, I believe they should have been listed as mercatoris) and they list the fast growth period as only 28 days.

I am still thinking that Pod had trouble making this transition just from your descriptions. The question remains, however, "why?" and how is it avoidable. The only thing I can stab at is that Pod may have needed an earlier transition into adult foods. I think Legs is the only one we have a journal on that has lived through both phases in an aquarium and with CaptFish's set up a whole variety (some unhappily so) was available.

Glad to know you FINALLY got the new compuer and that it cured your ills

I have been thinking about the red spots on so many of the hatchlings in Joe's tank. I experienced none of this and the article I read yesterday and recalled a similar post by Roy mentions bacteria issues when the hatchling population is too dense. Without someone to examine the dead hatchlings the conjecture was predation, I am now wondering if the marks were skin infections. The bacteria was very contagious and touching passed it on.

 

[DWhatley]

Tank Statuses - Week 6

Day 37(Fri) Found 1 Fed 1
Put Cyclop-eeze/oyster eggs in the tanks at 11:15
- LateForDinner: may have seen but it could have been SittingBull wandering
- SittingBull: 11:30 Found but fled 12:00 back visible and climbed wall to get supper
- Cassy: no show
- Sam: no show
- Hepzibah: believed gone but still putting food in sump

Day 38(Sat) found 3 fed 2
- LateForDinner: 11:10 found but not fed
- SittingBull: 11:00 found and fed easily
- Cassy: 9:20 PM found in filter sock, photographed and fed
- Sam:
- Hepzibah:

Day 39(Sun) found 2 fed 2
- LateForDinner:
- SittingBull: Waiting in his usuall spot and grabbed dinner when it was offered
- Cassy:
- Sam: Found and fed
- Hepzibah:

Day 40(Mon) found 1 fed 0
- LateForDinner:
- SittingBull:
- Cassy:
- Sam: Found in sump but would not eat.
- Hepzibah:

Day 41(Tue) found 0
- LateForDinner:
- SittingBull:
- Cassy:
- Sam:
- Hepzibah:

Day 42(Wed) found 2 fed 1
- LateForDinner: not sure found one where he hangs out but acted more like Sitting Bull and took the food easily
- SittingBull: maybe
- Cassy: found but could not feed
- Sam: no show
- Hepzibah:

Day 43(Thu) found 1 fed 1 (maybe)
- LateForDinner: This time I do think it is Late4Dinner I am finding but he did not get excited over the king crab and I don't know if the peppermint shrimp or the octo got the shore shrimp I pipetted later. He did play with the piece of crab but rejected it. I do think it was cooked and not raw as I was told
- SittingBull: no show
- Cassy: no show
- Sam: no show
- Hepzibah: will drop her name next week

 

[Nancy]

This is a wonderful way to keep track of your hatchlings! Of course, there may be more, but at least these are present and accounted for, and you add notes when relevant.

I was dubious about naming them at first, because it's all the worse if you lose them. But now I see that following each one as an individual is the way to go.

Keep up the good work, D!

Nancy

 

[SabrinaR]

I am soooo glad things seem to be going well for you! The little inklet looks awesome!

 

[DWhatley]

Nancy,
Jane Goodall set a precedence for naming studied animals (and caught a lot of flack) when I was a hatchling. She still talks about why she chose to do this and her arguments have won a lot of converts over the last 50 years. Since mine is not a scientific journal it does not matter but, as Jane found with the chimps, it is easier to keep track of animals with personality by giving them names associated with either behavior or physical features.

I have been fretting about Cassy. She SHOULD have had the best chance but needs the most food. She has not shown up for two days and she has been consistently on the wall early in the evening. I found out why tonight when I cleaned the filter sock (recall this is where she spent most of her hatchling life). Just in case I had a small dish with water, the camera ready and was very careful inverting the sock. Initial investigation before inverting did not expose her but once it was fully inside out, there she was.

Of interest is the fact that Cassy stayed tightly attached to the surface of the container. I offered a shrimp and she held it but did not compromise her attachment to keep it. We has noticed that this species seems to be hard to release into an aquiarium and will often stay even hours in the acclimation container. I think this is a species behavior during stress and, even at this age, Cassy showed the same trait and remained in the container until there was no motion and no one observing. I am not sure where the shrimp went between the photography session and her return to the tank. Hopefully she tucked it under her mantle and ate it but it may have come loose when I tied to fasten the container to the substrate (it floats even full of water).

The tape measure is 3/4" wide (~2 cm). Her mantle appears be about .5" (~1.27 cm) and arms about 1.5" (~3.8 cm). The ink is in the second photo (looking very much like a pseudomorph) was a result of trying to tease her away from the side by touching her with my finger. The ink in the first photo was unnoticed until reviewing pictures

 

[Level_Head]

The Naming of Octs

Jane Goodall set a precedent for naming studied animals (and caught a lot of flack) when I was a hatchling. She still talks about why she chose to do this and her arguments have won a lot of converts over the last 50 years.

In an experiment (it might have in the 1950s -- Dr. Boycott, perhaps) with octopus learning, each of the octopuses was given a three-letter code sequence. The experiment involved teaching one or more arms on one side of the animal, then slicing the brain into two halves and seeing how much and how quickly learning could be transferred to the other side.

One animal was talked about quite a bit; he'd been given the code name NDF, and this experiment involved a very early use of anesthetics for octopus surgery. In my story, the Nadef clan is named for him--and he earned a clan name for developing anesthetics by mixing and thinning the venom of various sea-creatures.

I'm all in favor of the naming you're doing, and consider it both practical and a token of respect.

And in going back and putting a title on this comment, I feel song lyrics twitching ... It's a delicate matter.

 

[corw314]

AHHHH.....I'm so excited for you Di! How adorable and nice to see the size by the ruler!!!! Keeping fingers crossed!!!

 

[sulley]

u have put in a lot of hard work d......fingerscrossed

 

[Lmecher]

Wow D, they sure are getting big. You're doing a great job (whisper whisper)

 

[DWhatley]

All 4 that I can find are growing but Cassy is by far the largest by roughly twice the size of SittingBull and Late4Dinner and 2/3 - 3/4 the size of Sam. I have not seen her since her rerelease and will check the sump sock again in the AM. She has to go through effort to wind up in the filter sock. The overflow box was designed to be a filtration sump but is just an empty dark water box and we drilled the side to gravity feed the current sump so she has to climb through the overflow box holes, walk around a pseudo barrier we have in place to try to prevent this (obviously not working with the little guys but never a problem with the adults) and then swim or crawl to the other side and climb through the grid then ride down the plastic tubing to the sock. The overflow box has a clear, separate lid and I am going to put a night light over the exit area to see if that will keep her in the tank.

 

[tonmo]

Wow, great work on this D!

 

[DWhatley]

I could not find anyone tonight by 2:00 AM so I decided to look in the filter socks. I believe I found Sam so it may have been Cassy I saw in the rocks last night.

The first photo is the one of Cassy and the second of the one I found in the sock tonight. I attempted to resize segments of the pictures so that the rulers matched.

I have place a sponge over the back of the overflow in hopes of preventing more Houdini escapes and will try to find a night light that I can put over the area tomorrow. I can't use much to block it because the tank will overflow (the pump is already not pumping at full force). We put two drains in the the tube tank and I wish we had in this one.

 

[Animal Mother]

Look like they're about the same size Kalypso was when I got him. Good job D.

 

[SabrinaR]

Wow thats just amazing! Your really doing it! I am very happy for you. This has been such hard work for you I cant even imagine putting in what you have to get here.

 

[kpage]

major kudos!