Kooah's Hatchlings - O.briareus

[sulley]

awesome D!!!!!!!!!!

 

[cuttlegirl]

Monty,
THAT question has been vexing me as well. So far the only thing I can think of is in reference to some comments Steve made about squid needing different sized and kinds of food at critical stages.

I was trying to find a reference for this, but some animals require different foods as they pass through "stages." Some larval plankton (not just cephs) switch to different prey when they settle out of the water column.

 

[Nancy]

i'm not surprised that a couple of them surfaced again, and there may be even more. Having tried to raise six little briaeus hatchlings, I know the experience of disappearing and reappearing. Sometimes I found that strangers could find them in the tank better than I could. By training the hatchlings to accept food from the pipette, you'll have a better chance of keeping them from disappearing entirely.

Fingers crossed that your little ones survive and grow strong.

Nancy

 

[DWhatley]

If you win I'll accept my tip in either cash or new fish tanks

If we win at the top level, Supporters go to TONMOCON IV

 

[Lmecher]

If we win at the top level, Supporters go to TONMOCON IV

Yeah baby...I hope it's in an exotic location

 

[DWhatley]

I would not call your vote for Chicago exotic but I have always wanted to tour Shedd

 

[Lmecher]

I would not call your vote for Chicago exotic but I have always wanted to tour Shedd

By no means is Chicago exotic....blah
I was hoping Netherlands even though it was a joke, sounds interesting.
We make a trip to Shedd every so often to get a good fix. Pretty cool, and no prices on the glass

 

[Shrimpy Brains]

Woo-hoo! That's fantastic news!


I would like those lotto numbers, too!

 

[monty]

yay!

 

[DWhatley]

Tank Statuses - Week 4

I will start reporting found and fed into updated weekly entries and only record new information as individual posts. Weekly Updates will not be posted to emails or show in the unread link

Day 23(Fri) Found and Fed 2 (Brood Tank: Sitting Bull, Puddles Tank: Sam)

Day 24(Sat) Found (2?) Fed 1 (Brood Tank: Sitting Bull and maybe LateForDinner)
- Sitting Bull was out and ready to eat but when I tried to feed her I touched her with the pipette and she inked and disappeared. Later I found one acting like LateForDinner (crawling the LR) and fed him but I did not see both at one time so I can't be sure. No sign of Sam but I only see him a couple of times a week and he has been feeding himself much of the time.
- Put CaptFish numbers to work

Day 25(Sun) Found(3?) Brood Tank One on the Left side, later One on the right.

- Brood Tank: Fed on each side, guessing the one on the right(where all longer living ones have all been until tonight) was LateForDinner and the one migrating to the left side is Sitting Bull. Left side octo definitely one I have been feeding and not a newbe but it could be the same one I fed on th right since I did not see two at one time.

- Puddles Tank: Found the new guy after very long search times. He was not sure what to do with the pipette but knew there was food attachedd. I had to feed twice before he got his shrimp but I am pretty sure he got fed. No sign of Sam.

Day 26(Mon) Found (4?) fed 2

- I still have not seen two at one time the brood tank. I fed LateForDinner and I think I saw and tried to feed a now afraid of the pipette Sitting Bull. I definitely saw an octo and it climbed the tank wall the way Sitting Bull tends to do but I could not find LateForDinner at the same time to be sure there are two.
- At around 11:00 PM, I found one in Puddles' tank but it ran away from the pipette. At about 5:30 AM I found and fed the sump sock octo (still not named). He is quite a bit larger than the others and identifiable if I see him fully in the open. He still has not gotten the pipette down well but eventually wrangled the shrimp out. Shortly after he disappeared with his prize, I saw Sam but when I came back with a new shrimp I could not locate him.

Day 27(Tue) found 1, fed 1 Brood tank, LateForDinner
- short on time tonight hopefully everyone will be hungry tomorrow

Day 28(Wed) found(4?) fed 3
- Hepzibah showed up in the sump tonight and took food twice. She looks small and I don't know if she will make it but she was doing her upside down trolling. It occured to me that this one may not be Pogo or Hepzibah but one of the ones that I had seen in the nets since the upside down behavior was not an attribute of either.

- Mama Cass (sump filter hatchling in Puddles tank) is looking promising. She is by far the largest and I noticed the pod population is dimishing. It appears her den is the crack between the overflow box and the glass. Still not good with the pipette but reached out and took the shrimp I squited in front of the opening.

- LateForDinner fed early but avoided the light later when I tried offering a second helping. Around 5:30 AM, I spotted one on the left side of the tank, on the back wall. I went for food but it disappeared, later to be spotted briefly in the LR. LateForDinner is never on the walls when I find him on the right side. This is only the second spotting of a hatchling on the left. Either SittingBull has taken the left side or LateForDinner has differing behaviors depending on which side of the tank he is investigating. I also caught a glimps of what appeared to be an arm in one hole in the LR while I could see the left side hatchling .

Day 29(Thu) found (4) fed (5)
- LateForDinner and whoever is on the left side (I will call it SittingBull but really don't know) both ate. SittingBull had second helpings (about 5 hours apart) but is afraid of the pipette or being out in the flashlight (possibly because it attracks the shrimp). She will duck into the LR and wait for me to put the pipette into the hole and takes her meal.

- Hepizbah was waiting at the tank wall and did not move all night. She took three shrimp about 3 hours apart. I still don't have a lot of hope she will make it but I add food to the sump and into a breeder net that is below the surface.

- I never really saw Cassy but had a good idea she was between the overflow box and the glass. I found a crab that had died shedding its shell and did not have any odor so I put it near the opening (it would have been too large for the others I think) and it was hauled into the crevice. No sign of Sam and the way Cassy dragged in the softshelled crab, I fear he may have suffered a similar fate as she is easily twice the size of the largest of the other three. --- Never mind, I found Sam at about 5:00 AM and he took 2 table shrimp legs. He seems to have a white spot covering the entire top of his mantle though and I am not sure what that means. He scurried off with his prized and I offered a leg to the overflow wall that was accepted by the creature behind (even after the crab). I'm going to need more small crabs I think but if the others will take table shrimp legs, food will be much less of a problem

 

[Nancy]

So it's been more than three weeks and you found two, with the possibility of more being alive. That's very good!

Something we don't talk about much is that the hatchlings may eat each other, the strong one in a particular tank prevailing. Some people who raise hatchings see this as a plus, because it provides food for the surviving octopus.

Nancy

 

[Nancy]

I know what foods my briaeus hatchlings ate in the first four months, because I know what was in the tank:

Copepods and other very small animals
Mysids (placed in the tank with hatchlings)
Amphipods (I had a huge supply, different ages and sizes)
Small snails
Small hermit crabs
Larger snails and hermit crabs

There was a good supply of all this food, in varying sizes (even baby snails).

Nancy

 

[DWhatley]

I have added some baby snails, small crab and whatever else I got in my plankton pull from Kara. I am going to order some shore shrimp from Paul if the weather breaks. He also offers some plankton but I am afraid it is too small. I don't know if I can con Kara into another crab run but am thinking about calling in one more favor.

I think I have 3, Sam in Puddles tank, Sitting Bull and LateFor Dinner in the brood tank. Interestingly, I never saw the sign of predation (or at least fighting) that was extreme in Conanny's tank. I intentionally reduced the count in the brood tank to see if this helped but lost all that were not in a large volume of water. I have no good feel for why the smaller tanks failed after a few days. Losses were heavy in the large tanks but in all but the tiny tanks the dead simply disappeared (this was true with the mercatoris as well). I am not comfortable with cannibalism as the answer since I found all the ones that died in small tanks and none had the marks we saw with Conanny's offspring. The large tanks have good clean-up crews and I am inclined to think the disappearances were handled by the scavengers.

 

[DWhatley]

Filter Sock Hatchling Found

I have not emptied the filter sock in Puddles tank (intentionally, usually do this weekly) since the octos hatched. I was very careful to remove it to a bucket of newly removed water, "just in case". I wish I had prepared a little better but I really did not expect to find the little fella in there. My first thought was to get him back into water so I coaxed him onto my finger and released him to Puddles tank. I don't think this is Sam. He was quite large and I suspect he has been eating very well. If I had been better prepared, I would have had a shallow bowl ready, taken a photo and decided the best relocation environment. Now, I worry that I have sentenced Sam or the sump guy to death by sibbling. I debated on putting him into the clean filter sock but was afraid he would starve (I only found one live pod in the sock, usually there are many more in a shorter cleaning time).

At one point, Thales suggested a filter sock might be a good environment (referring to cuttles) for experimentation, Snowmaker, one of our cuttle keepers found a live baby in an overflow environment after it disappeared 6 weeks earlier and I found two alive in the hatching tanks filter after over a week. I had considered trying this as a planned environment but felt the alive or dead mystery would be to hard wait out. Next time I have hatchlings, I will rig a spray bar in the sump and put a couple of nets/filter socks (possibly nets IN filter socks) to receive water from the overflow. I am thinking that if I use a net inside the sock, I could pull out the sock to check on an animal but still provide the overflow environment.

 

[Level_Head]

I'm quite pleased and my hopes still will soar
That you've found him -- perhaps he's one more
They are growing past larval
And seem healthy, not starval
But tell me, it is three or four?