Morpheus

[DWhatley]

It won't smell unless you miss a dead crab for a day then it goes down hill fast. If the crab has no smell I don't clean the tank but if it does, I rinse the sand and tank in freshwater, flush again with salt water and set it back up. You can put the crabs in a dry container when you clean with out causing a problem unless you catch my ADD. Since I keep two active I just transfer all from one to the other, figthting does not seem to be a problem, even in a soft shelled state (as I recently discovered).

I will often see females with eggs and for some reason these die shortly after the eggs can be seen. I have read that they go to deep water to release the eggs and have experimented a little but always loose the female. For awhile, I would feed the egg baring females to the octos so they would have the benefit of the eggs but I am back experiementing at the moment as I would like to culture these to have the hatchlings as food (particularly if Maya is about to brood). The female that I had quarantined for a week died two days ago but the eggs have not decayed as far as I can tell so I have been changing out the water daily (it gets nasty from the dead female) to see what, if anything will happen.

 

[Lmecher]

It would be great if you could get some to survive.

 

[DWhatley]

Thank you Mucktopus, appreciate your opinion. Now if only I could pronouce Abdopus, seems so many words in this hobby are difficult to pronounce without hearing them spoke. The one problem I find with getting all my information by

Here you go ->

 

[Lmecher]

Morpheus was out for an hour on Saturday from 2:00 to 3:00. Today I noticed him our at noon, he is still out now, I took a photo. He still will not accept any frozen food I offer. I am still finding new empty snail shells. I am wondering if he is looking alright?

 

[DWhatley]

I would rather not write this but I know you asked for a reason. Is he staying grayeish or does he pattern and change color all over. The mottled gray is often a sign of senescence but color can be deceiving and depends a lot on the ability of the species (some have a wider variation in color and patterning than others) and what the camera picks up. To me the camera rarely picks up the richness of the patterning and colors. Unfortunately, if he truely is nocturnal, daytime activitiy is often seen in the last week or so. If he starts wandering about restlessly (pretty identifiable) then aging is catching up. A single picture can be very misleading though.

 

[Lmecher]

He is much darker than the photo shows. I just noticed it looks as if there is a little damage on the tip of one of his arms. He has been out in the same place for almost 4 hours, his arms are moving about with purpose not flopping with current. I guess I will just keep an eye on him and hope for now.

This is not easy to ask. When they do go is it all at once ar do they dissentergrate slowly like an anemone?

 

[DWhatley]

No, if he goes, he will be on the bottom (I do know of one case where one was propped against the glass but only one). Usually, most color will be gone (but not all and you may see residual color changing but it won't look normal) and you will see a grayish ting (OhToo and Octane retained more color than my others though so base coloring does make a difference. The one aculeatus I had for a short time (Octopus Prime), however, was grayish white at death. No breathing and no moving reaction to touch. If you are unsure about final death but are sure it is immenent, putting it in a bucket of water in the freezer for an hour is something to consider. Hopefully this is not where we are going. Tip/arm chewing is often a sign of senesence but tip damage may be from another source.

Anytime I see odd behavior, I do an extra 5 gallon water change. We don't/can't/don't know what to test for many things that impact the water and sometimes it anecdotally seems to help restore a balance.

Did you see my "how to pronounce link above?"

 

[Lmecher]

Explain why I'd put it in the freezer for an hour?

Oh, just figured it out. Never mind.

He i definately on the way out. He is on the bottom now, still dark grey but moving less.

 

[Lmecher]

I am sorry to say that Morpheus didn't make it.
Good bye little friend

 

[bluespotocto]

RIP little octo!

 

[monty]

RIP Morpheus

 

[CaptFish]

 

[Nancy]

RIP Morpheus

Nancy

 

[kpage]

Oh No!! I'm sorry!

RIP Morpheus!

 

[sorseress]

I'm so sorry. RIP Morpheus.