Merkury - O.briareus

My Ollie (also an O. briareus) usually took his sweet time to come and take what I offered, especially in the begining. When I left a shrimp on the feeding stick in the tank as you just described, he never took it. In the begining especially it seemed like I would stand there holding it forever. Some are just more apprrhensive than others. I would not leave it in there too long, good luck, will be :fingerscrossed: for you.
 
It is important to get her eating. Briareus, more than any of the other species I have kept, seem to be very far sighted and literally can't see something in front of their face. They seem to be tactile hunters so touching the food to the suckers is often necessary. Once she tastes it, she will likely quickly figure out what to do. To get mine curious, I have found that rubbing the stick on the rock to cause a small vibration will often bring a curious arm. If you accomplish this gently touch the shrimp to the suckers on the investigating arm and she should take it (expect a 1/2 hour process, not a 5 minute one. Neal gets restless sometimes when our little guys don't come out immediatly). She may withdraw rapidly but if she got a taste the arm should reappear. Initially I would attempt feeding with the lights OFF (a red flashlight, not shown directly on the animal works well for feeding my hatchlings). Eventually, you will likely see her during the early evening if the room light is not bright but I would suggest starting around 11:00 PM until she is eating well. If you can't get her to take shrimp (I think she is old enough though), you can try freezing one of the hermits and removing it from the shell after you thaw it (or any other way you can get it out without breaking off the meaty body). I use a pipette to feed these and it gets a bit tricky to attach them but they are very well received this way even though rarely eaten when they climb around in their shells. A straw will work as well (sometimes I will use a straw with fiddlers, pushing the claw into the straw opening) if the crab and straw are sized right (a lot of hit and miss). The goal is to have the hermit's body exposed and dangling.

I have a couple of videos of SueNami missing shrimp but they were posted on our no longer available video download and I have not put them on YouTube. While checking, however, I found one Dave (CaptFish) took of Legs that shows the same aspect of briareus natural hunting techniques.
 
I left the shrimp in there all night and she never ate it. When I did offer it to her, she touched it a few times and pulled on the stick a little (she is very strong!) but never took it. Subsequent attempts to give it to her only resulted in her retreating further and further away until she was out of my reach.

Sigh, I guess I will go back to the LFS and buy her another $5 happy meal (emerald crab)...

Additionally, I did another water change today. Amonia still reading at zero. The tank is approximately half full now.
 
Fiddler crabs have been the "universal" food (not sure why but all octos seem to recognize and eat them). They are also way cheaper to feed if purchased on-line than happy meals , ship well via USPS and don't require much in the way of a holding tank.

Once a shrimp has been thawed and in water for more than an hour or so, it seems to loose its appeal. Even shrimp that have been a long time in the freezer will be rejected by animals that will take them regularly so we only buy 1/4 at a time (you do get some odd looks at the seafood counter). Since all the inland shrimp are frozen (including the stuff you see in the "fresh" window) sometimes it is "old" when you bring it home but flash frozen is less impactive than the impact of frost free home freezers. The fresher you can find the better (oriental food markets seem to have the freshest).

Guessing from his/her size it needs to be eating daily. Having recently had the opportunity to go through egg laying and hatching for this species, I spent time surfing and found a little info on growth expectations that I posted in our Cephalopod Science Forum.
 
When I had my briareus I used to find her using my wife's flashlight application on her IPhone. Since her flashlight app could change colors I did a test to see what colors my octopus would tolerate. White and blue made her flinch and hide, red caused her to flinch a little but she tolerated it and stayed out, and under green light she made no visible signs that she could detect the light. I was just curious if anyone else has tried colors other than red and what their reactions were. I'm posting this because everyone seems to except red as the universal lighting to use on nocturnal animals, but maybe if you have success with green or a blue/green mix it might look better or more natural than washing your tank in red.
 
The only experimentation I have done with green light is using the focus assist on my camera (a narrow green beam) and the octos hate it. After filming one of the squid Monster Quest shows Dale (GoneToBaja) mentioned that the green laser's seemed to bother the squid in a forum discussion. In both cases it is unclear if it is the beam of light or the color. I don't know if they chose to go with red later or not.

Jean has seen negative reaction to blue with their large octos but others have reported no ill effects from the typical blue moon light. I have had very good success with the red with O.briareus, O. mercatoris and a Macropus species so I have stayed with what has worked. I have found that leaving a white light on at night is negative for both diurnal and nocturnal animals.
 
My O. Briareus didn't seem to mind the blue moon lights I had, but tended to stay near the edges of the light's reach. The green light that I used was from an IPhone app and it was a pale green spread out in a wide area.
 
Day 3 Success with Shrimp!

I happened to have a green light, so I tried it tonight and she seems to have no reaction to it all. Great news. She definitely flees from most all white light.

After coming home from work to find all three of the newly purchased emerald crabs happily hanging out on the opposite side of the tank, I tried another smaller piece of shrimp. She grabbed the skewer and tugged (hard!) taking the shrimp and scurrying off to a hole in her rock. I tried to get her to take another piece a few minutes later, but no success.
 
dwhatley;160850 said:
Fiddler crabs have been the "universal" food (not sure why but all octos seem to recognize and eat them).

Hammerclaws! :wink:

You've been endlessly patient with your octopuses, and that has paid off. If our friend hasn't looked at your journals yet, well, I'd recommend it. And the others; there's a wealth of information here.

It's interesting how much personality difference there is, not just between species but among individuals.
 
Day 3 Success with Shrimp!
Excellent! IME, they won't take more than one properly sized food item in roughly a 4 hour period. Guessing on the actual length of time as most are fed once a day at roughly the size of your little guy. If it will take two feedings, and you can arrange your schedule to offer it, go ahead and try or put a live fiddler in the tank before you go to bed (now that she is eating, she may eat the mithrax if she is hungry since they are local to the Keys but she will have to find them by feel and they don't make a lot of vibration on the rock). We have not seen any issues with overeating but have seen occasional kills without eating if there is too much live food in the tank (the mithrax are fine to leave in there as are snails which may be eaten on occassion but rarely).

They do seem to want to commandeer the feeder stick. I have no idea why but it is classic octopus behavior even very early on. Cassy insisted on dragging the pipette down into the LR last night after both feedings. She took the shrimp out first but then insisted on keeping the delivery tube.

It appears that food sizing has a lot to do with what they will accept. Tomorrow, feed the same sized shrimp at about the same time if you can. Generally speaking about 1/2 - 3/4 of the mantle length seems about right for table shrimp. I am feeding shore shrimp that are about 3/4 mantle length but far thinner twice a day to all three of my tiny ones and they may hunt a little in between but after the exponential growth phase, once a day seems to work fine. They seem to have to digest the food and eliminate the last meal before they can eat again. With the adults, we almost always saw them eliminate when we started feeding the tank and they would not come for the shrimp until this task was completed. It got to be rather humerous and Neal would feed the Cyclop-eeze and small mysis to the corals and clean up crew and then wait for the "sign" before offering shrimp or a crab. They don't have much, if any, internal storage. Once you have a routine, you can try larger pieces until you see that part of the food is uneaten (and be sure to get it out of the tank! Shrimp is a major ammonia source and it happens quickly). At full adult, we fast one day a week, others will feed every other or even every two days depending upon the octopus. You will see a drop in appetite eventually once the growth rate slows way down.

It's interesting how much personality difference there is, not just between species but among individuals.
This is still a "debate" with the scientists but never has been with hobbiests :roll:

Been meanin' to ask :wink:, when are you going to be convinced you need to start a keeper's journal?
 
Alas, I had a 300 gallon tank for twelve years, until last year -- I'd wanted an octopus, but was not convinced the tank would be appropriate for it (and my reef-tank maintenance person being dead-set against the idea didn't help much).

I designed my office's conference room to have a two-foot-thick wall, thinking of octopuses -- and now regret that I didn't do that. Perhaps circumstances will change back in that direction again.

Unless you mean my fictional octopus family ...

As for that debate -- I've read many papers going back half a century or more where testing of octopuses starts out with determining which individuals are willing to participate in the tests. Out of 15 octopuses, one study said, 11 were willing. Whether you call that a difference in personality or capability, it is a difference between individuals that scientists were treating as "willingness." They are so alien in some respects -- from body plan to a brain that has no common ancestry with ours but has converged in suprising ways -- that it is hard to accept just how intelligent they are. And of course, the variation among species is large -- though I haven't seen a brain/body mass inventory among different species of octopus.

To ProfessionalDaydreamer: I wish you every success. The evidence here shows that the care of cephalopods can be challenging, but is very rewarding.
 
LOL, I was indeed referring to reality, got to get the other half on board! Show her the pictures of my new little guy :wink:

I have read the same statements about willingness (I think the followup was at least one was deemed unsuitble after causing mischief) to participate and you know some of that had to be tongue in cheek because of the debate on whether or not they had individuality. I remember Jean Boal mentioning in one of the documentaries what a joy it was to work with cuttles in the lab after so much time with octopuses because they would show predictable behaviors.
 
Day 4. She faked me out today. I thought she ate the shrimp, but she only kept it hidden until I was gone. I came home to find it lying in the bottom of the tank. Took it out and tried to get her to eat another piece. She grabbed it and dragged it off too. We'll see. I lost one piece somewhere amongst the rocks. Drat!

She is still very skiddish. Will not come out of the hole in the rock. At. All.
 

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