Monty - Unknown (brown eyespot Caribbean)

Finally, I believe this one is eating something I have offered by pipette. I have frozen some hermits in their shells and have been feeding them once a week or so to the briareus so I tried one today with this one. Like the shrimp, he took it from the pipette quickly but unlike the shrimp the uneaten carcass was not returned so I offered a second several hours later with the same apparent acceptance. Yeah!!! He is not coming out in the open yet but my little scratch the LR with the pipette trick (to cause a vibration) seems to call him to the den opening easily.
 
Since he ate twice, I tried again with a very small shore shrimp. He took and ate it but a second offering was rejected. Hopefully this means he is full and not that he didn't like the shrimp. He did not take it and then reject it like the first day but pushed the pipette and shrimp away so I am hopeful we are on our way to a regular eating routine. He played with me a little (well, he acknowledged my presence, didn't go further into the LR and blew at me to tell me to get lost) tonight so I am hoping to see all of him soon.
 
I am only seeing arms but he chose a den near the front and the tank is quite small. He seems to see me when I approach the tank and an arm will shoot out of one of the crevices. I am not sure if this is an acknowledgement of food supplier or not but he did it again this afternoon and took the offered shrimp (yeah!). Hopefully he will take one from Neal at our regular tank feeding time as I think twice a day is in order at this stage (the hatchlings eat around 11:00 and then again between 4:00 and 5:00 AM).
 
First observed outing

I fed him a shore shrimp around noon and Neal fed at our normal feeding time. He came out, took his shrimp and stayed out. We were able to watch him for the better part of an hour so I took a chance on some no flash photos. Hopefully the green focus beam won't keep him from coming out again tomorrow. This is the hardest tank I have (with the larger hex tanks almost as bad) to try to photograph as the extra angles reflect internal and external objects.
 

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D, which tank is this one in? Is it the one in your breakfast room near the door to the deck?
That one is so small it could easily fit into the barnacle. I am enjoying your photos. It's great you are able to see this one out.
 
No, that round one is a mantis shrimp tank, has no chemical filtration, is only 8 gallons and has a simple air ring for CO2 exchange. It is not suitable for an octo but has worked really well for Fidel, our havanis hitch hicker that came in Cassy's rock last year (we upgraded to a larger tank and brought back some of Ken's LR to add to what we had in the 35 that is now the sump). This one is a hex tank that I use for O.mercatoris (on the glass table in front of the stairs with the 1.5 gallon picos on either side). It won't be suitable for more than a month or two (max) because of the minimized octo proofing but is working better than expected for now (because of what appears to be rapid socialization). You can get a feel for how small she is by looking at the picture of Sleazy sitting in those barnacles in a photo on the first page. Sleazy was an average size mercatoris and I don't expect this one with get much bigger but it will need more room and better octoproofing because of the species.

Initially, I had expected to put this one in the living room corner tank until I saw the size. The corner 45 would be just fine for it long term (I have kept several species in there including three O. mercatoris (together), a macropus and an almost armless briareus) but I prefer to use it for nocturnals and have the diurnal octos in the breakfast room. Most of the ones we have kept in the BR (including three briareus) learn to come out at supper time and we get to see them regularly (Puddles was an exception but the living room tank was taken when she arrived). I have a rectangular tank that might be big enough but I can't remember if it is 25 (too small) or 35 gallons. With some creative plumbing, I would consider using it if it is a 35 and I can rig a 10 gallon sump (we could use the desk that we had been using as a temporary set up for some of the hatchlings as a stand). I have plenty of 10 gallon tanks around but the larger spare is not drilled so we would have to get a drill bit and attempt our first DIY glass drilling if it is the larger of the two. Neal (joking ONLY, Cassy would kill it in a heart beat) suggested putting him in with Cassy to have a 24 hour octo tank. I really DON'T want to have to maintain another tank but this one is already showing acceptance of our presence and I don't want to isolate it from daily activity. Decisions, decisions.

He showed a very strong white stripe while we were watching but we missed getting it with the camera. The red color is not typical hummelincki (he shows a lot of red but it is actually browner than in the photos) and the speckles in the acclimation pictures are not something I have seen before but I am still relatively certain of the species because of the arm to mantle ratio, the eyespot (if you blow up the third one twice you can just make out the bulls-eye ocellus just below the right eye) and the quick taper on the arms (in addition to having had another from the same LR farm). The skunk stripe is something most of them show and is not diagnostic.
 
Anyone who has searched live rock for an octopus will agree that there are dozens of rock octos, especially if you are looking in reduced lighting. I have also seen missing octopuses or unobserved details in photos. If you look at the First Observed Outing collection above and blow up the first photo twice, there is a phantom octopus about midway up the photo on the left hand side. I have mentioned that this small hex gives odd reflections but I cannot figure out what the "other" octopus is.
 
Neals says the phantom octo is my imagination :roll:

At this stage, I think this one will be special and if I am right about the species, we will learn something about the juveniles that I have not seen referenced in any literature. He turns very red, almost an orange. Joubini is supposed to show an orange/red color and I have seen a slightly (light and memory dependent) darker color on the mercs but I am 100% sure he is neither joubini nor mercatoris. As far as I know they can't change their chromatophores but they do develop new ones (especially the benthic, small egg species that are only born with a few) as they mature. So far we have seen white with brown stripes, this amazing red, lots of crypsis and two distinct eye horns. The eye-spot has not displayed any color just dark and light in a target pattern. I am totally facinated waiting to see how it will grow up.
 
Den With A View

He crawled into the side of this rock when released to the aquarium and seems to have found a den he likes (at least for the moment). He has his own observtion porthole and has found the appropriate sized shell (now missing it hermit resident) as a door. I am delighted that it is in the front of the aquarium and can (with a lot of effort) tell when he is "in".
 

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Please tell me I did not spend the last hour looking on eBay and Craig's list for a cheap 45 gallon aquarium and email prospects about the use of copper meds in the tanks. I did not do that! Really, I didn't. I didn't find a 44 gallon tank down the way that is available for $25, no, no, no I didn't do that.:sly:
 

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