• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

O. rubescens Eggs

rlt225

Hatchling
Registered
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
4
My octopus rubescens laid eggs approximately 8 weeks ago. She was captured in the wild around 4 months before that, and I was told it was unlikely that her eggs would be fertile and hatch. But..I checked the eggs today and there are 2 red spots on each egg that look like eyes. I read that rubescens eggs hatch in 6-8 weeks. Does anyone know if those red spots mean that the eggs have developed? If so, they should hatch pretty quickly and I'm not at all prepared to rear them! Do rubescens eat mysis and amphipods (like the other species you discussed in this forum)?
 
You might try PMing Neogonodactylus (Roy Caldwell) as I remember that he was very fond of this species. Also Taollan worked with this species for a year during his masters thesis (I believe he may be reading this as I write) :biggrin2:
 
Hey! I worked with O. rubescens for my master's and even tried to rear a couple broods. Let me take the pressure off you: you won't be able to rear them if it is really is O. rubescens (Ok, i guess anything is possible, but it is insanely unlikely. Unless you are at a marine station or similar facilities, then you may have a fighting chance. I am assuming, however that you are doing this at home). Many very experienced people have tried and failed.
Red spots means that they are developing. However, depending on water temperature, I have had them brooding for over 15 weeks (that was at 11C). Where was this individual captured and what is the water temp you are keeping it at.
Secondly, O rubescens has planktonic young, (for a picture check out http://www.wallawalla.edu/academics...s/Mollusca/Cephalopoda/Octopus_rubescens.html) which are much smaller than the other species that people talk about raising on these forums, which is one of the challenges in raising them. As such, they are not likely to take adult mysids or amphipods. Perhaps very young of either of them or artemia, and you may need to add some dissolved organic carbon to the seawater, like perhaps bovine albumin or something.
Ok, additionally, O. rubescens stays in the plankton for a very long time, to a comparatively very large size, than other planktonic octopus paralarvae (over 3 cm mantle length if I remember right.)
Anyhow, good luck. If you pull it off, you will be the first. Let me know if I can help out any other way.
Oh, and I hope this wasn't too discouraging.
 
Taollan,
Can you elaborate a bit on the organic carbon (and are albumin and cow pie synonyms?). Would the same apply to the larger egged species?
 
There has been some suggestions in the literature that dissolved organic carbon (DOC) may be important to cephalopod paralarvae development. Its not something that has been rigorously explored yet, and if you interested in articles, I can get back to you. I can't exactly recall them off the top of my head at this late hour.
Anyhow, that has lead me to think that perhaps this might be important to the raising of planktonic paralarvae. Definitely artificial seawater and possible filter natural seawater would be lower in DOC than what the paralarvae experience in nature. Next time I attempt to rear a brood of O. rubescens, I am planning on adding back in some excess DOC with at least part of the brood to see if there is a difference in survival.
That being said, albumin is the generic name of a class proteins that is water soluble . One type that is commonly used is bovine serum albumin (BSA) which is purified from cow blood and is used in a plethora of ways in many biology labs ( [protein] assay standard, enzymatic stabilizer, etc). It has struck me as perhaps a good form of DOC to try first. On further reflection, however, there likely are easier ways.....
The same may apply to large egged species, but they seem to be far easier to culture, so it doesn't seem like it would be too important for hobbists to worry about.
 
Taollan,
I would take issue with easy to culture, at least for the home aquarist when speaking of the large egged species. Within TONMO we have only very limited success with the large egged species and the only exception in recent time to the successes being mercatoris is one occassion of bimac hatchlings (no briareus that I know of) so while we are not scientists, trying scientific suggestions is not outside our desires.

I was serious about cow manure btw since it is ingested plant material. Would water plants (grasses), especially deteriorating plant rhizomes create the proper dissolved carbon? I have been playing with my feeder tanks a bit and have noticed that leaving even dead natural organic matter in the tank seems to decrease mortality and maintain water quality in a bare tank. It could be that they are just eating the plant matter but I have started trying to keep grasses in with the cephs as well.
 
I am sorry if I hit a raw nerve. I didn't mean to say they were easy to culture, just alot easier than planktonic species. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that these hatchlings are not built for high survival in any scenario. If you can approach natural survival (presumably averaging two individuals per brood reaching adulthood) or even 1/3-1/2 that, your doing pretty darn well.
Ok, I also guess I should expound the statement too. The relationship between DOC and cephalopod paralarvae development very poorly studied and weak. For benthic hatchlings, which are better developed I would guess the relationship is even weaker than for planktonic (though this is just an educated guess). I also priced albumin before I posted that. Its kinda spendy. Additionally, providing DOC usable by the paralarvae would be a shot in the dark.So my thought is that return on investment would likely be pretty low for a hobbist working with benthic young if you have any survival at all without it. That being said, I didn't intend to discourage anyone from trying it. It just if it was me, and I had the time and the money to invest in benthic young in a home aquarium, that wouldn't likely be the first thing I would try myself.
As for grasses and cow manure, I don't think the plant material for this specific purpose is what I would start out trying (thats not to say that aquatic plants or decomposing plants don't help survival). Plants have are very high in carbohydrates, particular cellulose and starches. Unless there is a radical shift in cephalopod physiology between paralarvae and adult, carbohydrates are virtually useless metabolically to the hatchlings. Lipids are the same. Ceph metabolism runs on protein, so you would likely need to provide DOC that is protein rich. Most ceph set ups are actively removing protein from the water, so it may be as easy as turning down/off the skimmer. Really paralarvae nutritional requirements are exceedingly poorly understood. I, unfortunately, don't have any solid answers, just a lot of guesses.
 
Taollan,
Thanks for the additional info. One of the advantages of TONMO is to be able to share info and ideas (with qualifications like you have given). Since aquarists are not a scientific community but are the second largest community for keeping cephs access to ideas germinated from observation (scientific or not) are welcomed and may provide some basis for the scientific group to come up with new ideas to officially test. I may not be able to read and understand a lot of the biologic papers but the germs of ideas and the kinds of translations you just provided help a lot when preparing for a brood. As you mentioned, any survivors are great. Experimentation with a select group by altering water quality (Steve has also mentioned that the baby squid survived better in protein rich water) and/or additives is not wholy outside the non-scientific community. With my very crude biologic knowledge, I know that carbon is the a basic for all living things and was asking for the kind of clarification you just provided. Would there be benign (mostly) routinely available substance that might provide an absorbable/ingestable carbon that would not be suitable for the lab but might be worth adding at home?

I have also wondered about ingestable trace amounts of copper and experimented to see if adding a penny to a small tank would produce it in the water (affirmative). What I had wanted to do was to put small food critters in the tank and then feed them to a small group of already doomed small egged hatchlings. Unfortunately, the eggs did not hatch so I never completed the experiment.
 
When I was preparing to experiment with my small egged hatchlings that did not happen, I was looking environment ideas for food (more or less like gut loading) but you seem to think the octo body needs exposure, correct?
 
I hope I am wrong but I may get to do some experimenting after all. Beldar's mantle is changing shape and had a hardness near the end of her mantle :sad:
 

Shop Amazon

Shop Amazon
Shop Amazon; support TONMO!
Shop Amazon
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Back
Top