Octavia - O. hummelincki

Find the ceph answer

Answer to the Find the Ceph thread post for Octavia. Here is a picture taken just a few seconds later:



My attempts to take a photo for the find the Ceph thread are constantly thwarted. The problem is that once she sees me looking at her she changes color (and is usually how I find her when I she is missing right in front of me). I have set the camera up further away and waited or tried to sneak up or hold still for a period of time but she knows when I am there and won't "disappear". Often she comes out to inveistigete.

She no longer comes up for petting and has become somewhat shy (except at dinner time and when I am cleaning the tank and invading her territory). Her den is a large cave now and easily viewed as opposed to her original choice that was up inside a piece of rock. I believe she out grew the first den but am unsure why she has now chosen the night dark side as opposed to the red lit night side. I keep my fingers crossed that it is not because she is about to brood (sadly, this is the scenario I have seen more than once in this tank). Her color and patterning are excellent but her mantle has grown appreciably. She has eaten well from the beginning and I hope it is not another sign of pending egg laying.

Her shyness is not reclusive and, as I mentioned, she will change color when she sees you looking at her tank. If you approach the tank she acknowledges you and if you hang around she will usually come out of her den and go to the wall but she no longer comes over to my hand, in or out of the tank.
 

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Very beautiful. It always amazes me the way they can change color to whatever is near them. My obsession with them will never go away!!! Great pic Di!!!:smile:
 
She had gone to the dark side! I keep a red light on half the tank (this is the one that is two tanks connected with two 6" tubes) and all the young animals have chosen to den on the side with the red light but move to the "dark side" when they age ... or brood :sad:. She has started to act a lot like Maya and less like Octane as well. Her color and patterning are excellent but Maya's did not deteriorate until after she started brooding. I keep hoping this is not were we are headed but logic is telling me otherwise. One minor consideration is that she out grew her initial den (on the red side) and the Koralia stopped functioning (needed a new, now replaced, motor).

She is still very active and curious and makes sure that you see her if supper is late (she paces the front of the tank). She eats well but that could also be a sign of about to brood. I wish I could get a good video of her color and pattern changes but once I get the camera out she stops morphing :roll: and the only way I could get shots is to scare her.
 
Octavia was almost social today. Her normal day is to be awake early, sleep midday until about 5:00 PM and then go to bed just before lights out at 11:00 (sometimes she will go to bed as early as 10:00). Today we had a house full of family ranging from 2.5 to great grandparents and she skipped her afternoon nap. Octavia stayed curious about all the goings on all day and even moved over to the left side of the tank to watch people. At one point, oldest son decided to put his hand in the tank (he is not an aquarium keeper) and swears she came after him and tried to crawl up his arm. I missed the interaction but I suspect she thought he should have had food. I think he is a bit afraid of octopuses but would never admit it since I have photos of his daugher petting Octane.

She gave me a bit of a scare the other day when she moved a good sized rock up to the front of her den but she kept the opening clear. I do so hate having females as the fear of brooding is always on my mind, especially when they are as active and enjoyable as this one.
 
Octavia is now somewhere between timid and social :biggrin2:. She is not afraid of me (or most anything that goes in her tank) and approaches but does not stay for much petting. If I am retrieving crab shells or cleaning her tank she comes over to my hand and gently touches it as if to stake her territory but she does not aggressively grab.

After Tony mentioned toys, Neal suggested we see if she would play with something so we offered the plastic ice cube (originally a feeding stick for SueNami after he disrupted his Live Rock with the fixed version we were using). She ignored the food but took possession of the ice cube for several days. Unlike the two O. briareus, she did not use it as a float but she did try to bite off the plastic feeding tie.



She has lost interest in it now though so I will have to see if something else takes her fancy. I think I will raid the toy box to see if we have any leggos left but I hoed out that room not long ago.
 

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Octavia dances on the front of the tank daily. She is particularly mobile at supper time (hers) but goes to her den and watches us eat :roll:. After our supper she seems to want attention. I tried a new view with the camera since the tank is so reflective I rarely make pictures worth keeping. Shooting one handed and playing with the other is a feet of dexterity that I need to simplify but the video came out better than expected.
 
Octo in a jar?



NOT :sagrin:



For some reason, Octavia decided to ear her crab claw in the tube between the tanks. This is not her normal habit. For a long time she would take her food to her den but now some days she eats most of it up on the side wall front glass, this however is new.



When she eats crab claws she gets the arm and claw. When I clean up there are three pieces to find.
 

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Sadly, she is starting to show her age and restlessly dances. She is often a gray (but still can show color) and is hanging about near the top of the tank. She has not shown signs of looking for a brood den but has started to shed sucker skin frequently (this seems to happen more as they reach old age) and appreciates sucker tickles to loosen the shed.
 
You never quite "get used to it" but it is part of the game of their short lives. I enjoy having them in the house enough to accept what is but when you see the end coming it is always sad. Hopefully, I will have another month with her being active. She is still eating but spends a lot of time near the top of the tank. Oddly, she has not shown signs of brooding. I have double checked my water but can't find a problem.
 
Octavia is ravenous most of the time but has not shown overt attempts at securing her den so I am hoping for more time with her. This is the longest (4 months 2 weeks) I have kept a female O. hummelincki before brooding so I am going with the theory that the females are caught during their prebrood hunger scavenging rather than a change of environment bring on early brooding.

She did something unique and interesting this weekend. I am not sure what to make of it but in my most anthropomorphic mode, I would say she was preparing to pounce. She has gotten into the habit of "sneaking" up on me when I clean her tank and then lightly "tagging" (as in touch not as in bite) me when I can't see her. The approach is much different than any other time I put my hand in the tank. I usually check her where abouts before starting to clean and usually find her in her den (not always, some times she is out on the front glass). Sometime during my process of scrubbing the tank sides she goes to the back wall and turns almost black (very hard to see her on the black background) and then works her way over to my hand then, TAG, You are IT. Even though I know she is likely to do this, I think I always jump as my mind is usually wandering while I do mundane chores. I will usually give her mantle a gentle pet and then ignore her and she allows me to finish cleaning her room. This cleaning was a bit different. She appeared to be watching me clean the other tanks (hers is usually the third tank to be cleaned). As I finished the second tank, she exited her den and sat in the middle tube as if waiting for me. The only thing I could think of is that I started on the right side of her tank last week (because she was on the left) and this is opposite of my normal pattern. Did this cause the odd behavior? Is it at all related? Who knows.
 

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Just a couple of pictures to show her size



One other thing I wanted to journal. When I was playing with her last week I had my head over the tank opening and closer to the water than usual just to see what she would do. She had gone to the back wall and I was inviting her to return to the front (our hands out of tank signal is to go to the live rock or to cross over to the other side of the split tank). She has been known to blow a little water around with her siphon but not more than an inch above the tank ... you guessed it, she hit me square in the eye and a face full, not just a small squirt.
 

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Clam Bake

I picked up half a dozen clams this week and put one on each side of Octavia's tank thinking she might discover it during one of her foraging forays. As I was distributing the clams I discovered one had died in the acclimation bucket (I leave them in tank water for a day before putting them in a tank). It was not long dead so I was going to offer it to Octavia but discovered that she had already found one of the clams and was opening it herself. Not only did she eat the first one but found the one on the other side and ate that immediately after finishing the original. Yeti got the pre-opened one, one other died the next day and was refused but Octavia ate 4 live in one day :roll:
 

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My sweet girl is still hanging (quite literally lately) in there. She is always hungry and has not shown (please don't let me writing this change that!) signs of making a final den. Interestingly, quite the opposite in that, much like Roy's male blue ring, she has taken to sleeping near the surface on the wall and only visits her den during her day naps. She spends much of her waking time (especially when supper is about to be offered) bobbing her eyes above the water line. Neal wondered aloud if she notices a difference in the view from above and below water. She does it daily now so it is not a one time thing. Tonight she decided to sleep in the upper tube between the tanks. I have never had an octopus to choose this for a sleeping den so it is odd. I half wonder if this species will not brood if never mated. Wishful thinking perhaps.

Her at rest color actually looks better than it had but I did notice her arms just suggesting a cork screw dangle the other day. She also gets quite pissy if supper is late and will squirt water when Neal FINALLY delivers supper. This is not a daily thing but she is more active and somewhat grumpy more of the time. She is also going to "sleep" later in the evening. For most of her tank life she would go to her den just before the lights turned off with the timer. Now we see her moving around for as much as two hours after lights out. We will be gone for two weeks and my son, knowing she is older, is quite concerned that she might die in his care. I told him not to tell me if it happens as it would not change anything for me to know except I would be sad during our vacation.
 

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