Not sure what he is....

[corw314]

Feeder Tank

This is just the beginning. I brought home 1/2 a bucket of sea water along with about 20 crabs. It is a 15 gal long, with a bubble filter and a small mechanical with charcoal. I bought a glass canopy and at lowes picked up a florescent light fixture with a plug. They are eating saltwater flake food right now and very funny to watch the bickering that goes on when food is added to the water. They play king of the rock on the one rock that sticks out of the water. I want to raise the water level but need to add more rock so they can emerge if they want to. One problem, the little mechanical filter does not have a top so one of the crabs has already discovered it makes a great home! I plan to pick up some beach sand and do a water change tonight now that they are doing well.

And so far, Spike eats anything I place in his tank. He is not picky at all...

 

[corw314]

3 weeks! I've been leaving him alone, letting him hunt when he's hungry. Tonight was the first time he was perched outside his den so I knew he was hungry. I grabbed a crab and my camera and took a short video and saw very clearly his eye spot. Very yellow and deep blue circle and I can see growth, already! I offered him the crab by hand and he came out and took it and let me gently touch his leg before he had enough and retreated! I'm hoping Tony can figure out how to post it as I did not have the software to even open it on my computer.

 

[Lmecher]

Sounds beautiful, I hope Tony is able to post it as well. Sounds like you are making progress. I am anxiously waiting to see more

 

[corw314]

Could not email it but here's a new pic!

 

[corw314]

Jess and I went collecting at low tide today. Funny, when we got there she had no interest, but as she started finding creatures, she took my net! We returned with mud snails, a round type of snail, grass shrimp, hermit crabs and a small moon snail which I was very surprised to find. Now here's a question. As I was showing the moon snail to my son, I said I wonder if it bites and he said is it poisonous? I have no idea. I need to google moon snails as I would like to keep it and not feed it to Spike. Now I put in Spikes tank 3 hermit crabs and around 10 mud snails. He came out, was looking zebra colored, twitched down to the hermits, grabbed all 3 and then twitched back up to his den and in looking at the pictures, he had a green color like the algae. Plus he had the "conehead" shape! Very strange little octopus! What a pig!

 

[DWhatley]

That second photo reminds me so much of Maya. Her eyespots would practically glow sometimes.

The moon snail is awsome, you may have to feed it mollusk and keep it out of your holding tank for food as it seems that snails are also part of its diet but definitely a keeper!

Euspira heros - Wikipedia

 

[corw314]

Di - I do believe I have a "Maya" as Spikes' eyespots looked exactly like Maya's! Spike has eaten since yesterday, 3 hermit crabs and 4 snails plus I think some of the shrimp have disappeared. You should see the pile of empty shells he now has collected by his den! And he's getting very curious about me! Even though I know he's full, he's sitting positioned so he can observe us. I wish I could email that video I took, but I'm getting an error message, not enough memory when I try to send to Tony. Anyway you get see the eyespots very clearly. Looks like I may be setting up another tank today for the moon snail.

 

[DWhatley]

Carol,
YouTube is free, it does not take long to sign up, they don't require personal information and they provide a URL link we can use here that will show the beginning clip. The download takes awhile but is faster than other sites I have used and the quality is decent. I would really like to see the video

 

[corw314]

Spike has not been out till today, at least not when I am around. This evening, I just returned from work and he was out looking! I think he's doubled in size already and I can see a very dark blue eyespot. The one pic is in very poor focus but when I lighted it up you can definitely see it! He's a pig. I put 5 snails in last night and they are all gone. The shore shrimp, there is only one smart one left in his tank. Still working on getting a decent pic of him as I do not want to startle him.

 

[DWhatley]

You can also make out the orange/yellow ring around the blue, especially if you click and enlarge the picture. At this point, a spikey bimac is a hummelincki/filosus but we have seen such a diversity that I continue to wonder if we are really looking at two or more varieties. Size, in particular, seems to vary excessively. I wish I could find the depreciated description that listed and then delisted the species as a dwarf. Maya was dwarf sized (larger than a mercatoris) but Penny and Octane were more than twice her size. At first I wondered if the female was small (backwards from most) but in one of the studies I read, they mention a very large female that skewed the size averaging.

 

[corw314]

Spike update....Jess and I went collecting yesterday and came home with crabs, snails and a couple mussels. Feeder tank doing well and I find I do not need to collect for 2 weeks at at time. Spike continues to eat on a daily basis. I found him out yesterday, but did not get any decent pics. His size now, curled up about the size of a tennis ball. Still is content to sit at the opening of his den and watch everyone, but is still very cautious about coming out during the day. I have caught him out numerous times when everyone has gone to bed. I am hand feeding the crabs when I know he is very hungry and he is very cautious with this too. He lets me touch him but flashes color with each touch. Kevin will be Spike sitting for a week while we are in Florida, leaving Tuesday at 6:30 from AC!

Question....I have never had so much plant growth in a tank before. I'm thinking it's just a really healthy tank but everything is so green! Any thoughts? If the snails would last, I'm sure they would eat it but Spike eats everything except 2 smart shore shrimp and the serpent star, who I must add is getting very fat!!!!

 

[corw314]

RIP Spike..I'm not quite sure what happened yet, but got a call from my son while in Florida that he had found him.

 

[CaptFish]

RIP

So sorry to hear it. It must be even worse not knowing how it happened.

 

[djkaty]

Hi corw314, aww... I am new here and just read this entire thread a short while ago to learn a little more, I wasn't expecting a really abrupt ending just a couple of hours before I logged on. So sorry your octopus died He looked really great.

 

[sulley]

rip...sorry