My First Octopus

[Lmecher]

Have you tried touching the glass? My braireus would peek at me the same way. I would try to put my hand on the glass often so he'd get used to seeing it. When I'd feed him he would take his sweet time, sometimes it took him 15-20 minutes to decide it was safe. Over the course of time I hold the stick closer and closer to the shrimp. It was exciting when an arm would touch and hold my fingers while he ate. Eventaully he would also follow my hand on the glass. Diablo reaches out and touches my hand when I put my hand to the glass. As D mentioned, the first touches may be rough, may pull hard. Try not to pull back, just resist. I am excited to see how it goes for you.

 

[mtlarsen]

I have tried to put my hand on the glass. I started day 3 and have done it thru day 5. Lol such a long history.

 

[DWhatley]

LOL, I would not call it initiating contact so much as provding the opportunity and familiaraity for the octopus to initiate contact.

Is Octopado his name?

 

[mtlarsen]

No name yet. Waiting until after two weeks. Octopado is my new favorite way of saying occupied. Well with the way he has been staring at me I'm pretty sure there will be contact just not the nice kind.

 

[mtlarsen]

Well I put my hand near him and after 45 seconds he decided to attach two arms to my finger and pull I did as I was instructed and did not pull back. He held on for about 10 seconds before coming to the conclusion that he could not eat me. The bottom of his arms turned a peach color when he grabbed on. The only other time I have seen that coloration is during feeding. After he let go he retreated a little bit back into his den, but came right back out to where he originally was.

 

[DWhatley]

So, are you still grinning from eat to ear?

Most of the time I saw the undersides of Octane and OhToo, they were peach speckled (not solid). On a rare occassion it would be white but I think the speckled peach is an at rest color (but trying to determine what different colorations might mean is still baffeling the researchers, it may be that "mood" is not involved).

 

[mtlarsen]

Day 6

Hmm. The comment you made about the peach coloration is interesting as my octopus seems to keep the underside of his arms white and it goes to a peach coloration when feeding.

Well here is my pic of the day. He hasn't moved from his den since I have been home and I don't expect him too either. He goes to sleep for the night around 9 pm. No trips outside of his den, but I was at work all day. He seems to make trips out earlier in the day. The interaction today was interesting, but obviously aggressive. I don't know if this helped gain trust with me or made him more reluctant to explore my presence in front of the aquarium. Time will tell.

 

[CaptFish]

Pen is peach on the underside always.

 

[mtlarsen]

I wonder if I should worry then.

 

[CaptFish]

no I see nothin to worry about. just diffrent pusses behaving differently.

 

[DWhatley]

trying to determine what different colorations might mean is still baffeling the researchers

I wish I could tell you to "relax" but octo keeping is always worrisome. I will tell you to enjoy though. Sometimes they seem to have to "think" about new experiences for about 3 days. I have made mention of this in some of my posts to the effect that I believe the researchers that try to study long term octopus memory may be missing something significant.

 

[snowmaker]

What is Cyclop-eeze?

I found a product I really like from Brine Shrimp Direct called GP Diets:
GP Diets, Active Spheres
They are graded in different sizes and most importantly they are neutrally buoyant. They seem to remain aloft in the water for a very long time.

 

[mtlarsen]

Day 7

Well I got home only to find that he has completely covered the place in his den where I could see him with rocks and shells. However I looked over in the opposite corner of the tank and there he was. I am going to post my first video if I can figure it out. The first video is my feeding him and the second video I tried out my camera underwater and got a really good video. However I feel that I may have been too overzealous. I think I scared him a little. He didn't ink but the coloration changes were pretty dramatic and I have a feeling that he was trying to convey that I was irritating him. Hopefully I didn't push it to much and affect the trust (if any) that we have already built. Please let me know if the videos work.

[video]

[/video]

 

[mtlarsen]

Ok guys I guess I have to wait on Youtube to approve the video? Any advice is welcome.

 

[DWhatley]

Unfortunately, our direct video upload was not compatible with the new release of the forum software so we are back to using external providers. I like YouTube the best but I don't remember ever having to have an "approval" (but it has been awhile since I signed up). It does take a long time to upload them but the streaming is better than most of the other free posting sites. Once it uploads, all you need to do to post is to capture the URL (http:// address), highlight whatever word you want to use as a link and then click the film strip icon. A new window will open for you to paste the URL.

Looking at what you pasted, it is an embed object but that is not what our software wants. VBulletin's method is actually simplerer by just using the URL but it gets confusing. If you can view it on YouTube, then we can view it here.
Let me know if you have problems (you can PM me) and I will try to diagnose. I WANT TO SEE THE VIDEO