Monty - Unknown (brown eyespot Caribbean)

[DWhatley]

Monty is pacing the wall more and more and I think he is out growing the tank. The one oddity I noted though is that Penn is also "antsy" lately and I wonder if this is typically the beginning of mating season. Monty's larger tank is looking promising for a move at the end of the month. The test shrimp is still doing well and no spikes have been detected from the live rock relocation. After a second shipping delay with no DOA's this week, there is a clean up crew, a little macro algae and a mushroom. I am hoping the mushroom will attach in the next two weeks or I will have to move it to a small rock and put it in the old tank until it is octo safe. We still have to finish a few small details with the tank lid and move the skimmer from the other tank but it should be fully assembled by the end of the weekend.

 

[DWhatley]

Since the trama of the mud bug Monty has been more recluse and has not wanted to play. He is eating well and is coming out later in the day (7:00 PM) but is not staying out long and will not come to my hand (but he does not send me away). I am trying to keep a mini journal of his action.

While he was out tonight (he did not take his shrimp from the stick at normal feeding time) I tried to feed him again but he had no interest in the shrimp so we decided to give him another crawfish. He avoided it as long as it was on the sand or was jumping but when it landed on the live rock he immediately went into stealth mode.

 

[Lmecher]

Wow, thats a fast little sucker. Nice coloring too.

 

[DWhatley]

Trying to do too many things at one time and lost my response. Monty is a slow poke compared to Tank. If I were to rename Tatanka (again ) I would name him Greased Lightening. The speed is only for a matter of 6-12 inches but he can do a now you see me now you don't like no other I have kept.

 

[DWhatley]

Monty spent most of the day in his "it is OK for you to see me" den and came out on his own at dinner time before being offered food. Since he played for a long time with my hand last night, I put it in to see if he wanted to play the squish through the fingers game. Nope, he wanted to eat and attached and pulled at my fingers with the suggestion of munching them if food was not shortly forthcoming. It was not exactly an aggressive attachement but it was not play. I had no difficulty keeping my fingers away from the beak and he definitely could have exerted more force.

He ate his crab meal in this open den but after eating went to his private quarters so we had no play time tonight. We are considering moving him a week earlier than planned to his larger quarters. The tank is doing exceptionally well, all the polyps and mushrooms have attached and the skimmer has stopped over reacting to the one piece of LR that had excess protein (never saw signs of a minicycle but this rather large rock did not have the amount of flow it has now while it sat in my totally emptied LR bin. I will do a water change and test tomorrow but, if we can encourage Monty into our transfer gadget, it is likely he will be in his new home this weekend. I would really like to get a picture of him in the dish I used to transfer him during acclimation but I don't believe he will fit

 

[DWhatley]

We transferred Monty to his larger tank (I am not sure if I do or don't want him to out grow it) tonight more or less on a whim. We had planned to do the transfer sometime this weekend but he was out late and had tried to swim in his cramped quarters so we decided to try baiting our fish transfer gadget with a crab to see if he would willingly come to the trap. He was not particularly hungry because he had eaten and played already today but still could not quite keep his eyes off the crab. He did a very odd thing as we were trying to be patient for him to decide to enter the trap. He curled up all 8 arms around his mantle (very mercatoris like) so that all you could see was a very white underside and extended the suckers (has anyone else ever noticed that the sucker side of an octo arm looks like staghorn coral?). This in it self was odd behavior but then he tumbled out of his den as if he had intentionally made himself into a cannon ball. He unfolded just as he hit the live rock. Unfortuantely, no pictures.

He squirted a little when he realized he was in the transfer trap and tried to escape briefly. It is only a few steps to the new tank and he had stopped panicing before he was released. Hopefully he will go to bed soon because he has been dancing along the full length of the aquarium for an hour. He did swim a couple of times and spent a little time investigating the LR but mostly he walked back and forth along the tank wall. He had no issue with my hand in the tank and played squish the octo for about 10 minutes and then used our "sign" for hands out of the tank (leaving the wall and going to the LR) even though the LR environment is totally new.

I think he is going to be one of the smartest octos I have kept and I want to experiment a little with sign recognition. He did not like the rubber duck planned to use as a choice indicator so I need to rethink an approach.

I just went down to check on him and he has found a spot similar to his "you can't see me" den and settled in for the night.

 

[tonmo]

Cannon ball - interesting behavior! How's he liking the new tank?

 

[Lmecher]

I agonized about transfering Diablo. I was ready for a real ordeal. Diablo jumped right in the transfer container I had baited with a shrimp although I was worried he'd jump out onto the floor when I paused to take a photo. I bet it gave you the warm fuzzies to see him swimming happily in his new roomy home. I think the squish through your fingers was a thank you.

You need to post a photo of the tank, lets see if I remember it!

 

[DWhatley]

He has just about adopted it as home but still freaks out a little at the view. I accidentally failed to turn off my flash experimenting with the "automatic" setting on my camera and he inked up a storm, went catatonic, shed suckers and sulked on the back wall today. However, he has found both a you can see me den and a do not disturb hole in the LR like he did in his small tank so by next week he should be comfy.

I am trying to pay more attention to how they use their arms after all the commotion about arms vs legs and thoughts about self directing arms. He did something peculiar with them yesterday when I was petting him. Normally he keeps the suckers on the glass during our play time but yesterday he placed two or three of them in my hand and kneaded his suckers on my fingers. He was not trying to pull on my fingers to move them, just sat there and kneaded them for a couple of minutes but he was flashing his eyespot the whole time (a sign of not being happy but not of fear). Today after his inking he shed a bunch of sucker linings and I suspect the two things are related.

He is also leisurely taking his live crabs. In the past he would spring on them but now he will let them wander the tank awhile before sidling up to them and capturing them slowly in his webbing. The live bait shrimp in his tank was not to be seen so perhaps he has been snacking on snails and shrimp in addition to his crabs.

 

[Lmecher]

Yeah, sounds like "not so hungry" behavior. Maybe the kneeding was an attempt to help the sucker linings shed, pure guess. He sounds delightful. Diablo has been doing something I have never been able to photograph becaue it is so fast. He covers the output with his body (very strong flow, when it hits him as he passes it looks like his skin is being pushed off) and his webbing blows up like a balloon. It is the oddest thing, cool but scares me a little, I have actually asked him out loud if he's sure he should be doing that.
And no I am not crazy, he didn't answer. Do you talk to your octopuses too or am I the only one?


Did you see my Halloween photo in the supporters thread? I am kind of embarrassed now.

 

[DWhatley]

On a local reef forum someone asked a similar question (more about shouting at their fish when they disrupted something) and I did not reply because I don't think they would understand that most octo keepers carry on a daily monologue with thier critters. "Are you hungry?", "Let's see if you want shrimp tonight.", "Do you want to play?", "Will you let me take a picture?" ... I think the question of oddity would be, "Does anyone NOT talk to their octopus?".

HOWEVER, asking him to make a judgement call ...

 

[Lmecher]

My family members when I make kissy noises when trying to get his attention.

 

[DWhatley]

Tell them that is the sound of a shrimp swimming

 

[Lmecher]

Great photos
Very interesting how 2 inked on the same day. You mentioned all 3 were out and about, may be they fore see some kind of natural disaster event? I think I know what it is. Tonight is Samantha's sleepover birthday party. With a house full of12/13 year olds I am sure to get no sleep.

 

[DWhatley]

You keep brightening my day at your expense!

Monty seemed OK with the camera tonight but I did not use the tripod (the three legged monster seems to be intimidating but the 120+ pound dogs are now ignored for the most part). I either have changed something in my aquarium settings for the camera or it is not functioning as well as when it was new (before it broke) but I keep getting very grainy shots, particularly of this aquarium. The videos are still decent and I am working with the light on this tank so likely it is the photographer. I turned off the focus assist beam because it annoyed the octos but I will turn it back on to see if it makes a difference.

The last picture is our "signal" that I have to take my hands out of the tank. It appears that he fully understands the intent of the signal partially because he will "test" me on occassion. He will go to the bottom of the tank an put his two back arms so that they touche the LR. I don't remove my hand until he faced it. Sometimes he then comes back to the wall and at others he will complete the signal, wait for me to remove my hand and then go about his business. I have used a similar signal with all that interacted with me and it is amazing that they understand it so quickly.

What I have not been able to do is to get Monty to establish a separate play and feeding area. I am trying to use the left side of the tank as a feeding place and the right for play. With my others, establishing a specific play area was quickly established but I had not tried to separate the two functions.

He crawled up into my hand today and kneaded his suckers again. This time it was a gentler kneading but he tucked himself fully in my hand as if it were a shelter. Very sweet and somewhat puzzling.