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Octo keeping...again

Shea

Cuttlefish
Registered
Joined
Aug 24, 2008
Messages
29
Hello again everyone. As some of you know my first O. Hummelincki died a about a week ago:sad:. I am trying to get another opinion on wether or not I should give it another go. My water parameters are as follows:
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 10-20
PH- 8.2
S.G.- 1.023
Temp.- 78
Copper- 0
My friend at the LFS has a baby Hummelincki in, and said that he would replace Ocho (deceased octo). I'm just curious if my water quality is up to par for a Hummelincki and if you guys think it wise to give it another go.
 
i would say it is fine. right now my water is worse then that and mine is doing fine. although i'm not saying leave it like that. just do a few water changes. I just haven't had a chance to do it in about a month...
 
its probably not even ur fault, u rparameters arer fine. although octos prefer a 1.026 SG, i dont think thats the cause. every LFS ive been to kept their octos at 1.023-1.024
 
I am currently drip acclimating my new Hummelincki. He/she is curled along the side of the bucket, normal acclimation behavior? How long should I drip the little guy for?
 
Drip for a good hour. Watch you keep him covered. I had one escape within seconds of my taking my eyes off the container.
 
He has been in the tank about 30 minutes and is now covering my clam (assuming he is eating it) Watch out Hermits and snails :smile:! The lights will be off for the next 24 hours, but when they come on should I just use the actinic blue? Or can I use my 10,000k daylight bulb too, or is that much light gonna cause stress? They are power compacts.
 
I believe he is a male so his name is now otocon or otto for short . He is spending alot of time in his den. He will come out when I drop a fiddler crab in the tank but then pulls it back in. He seems very shy, considering my last one would spend alot of time in the open and cruising the glass. Which behavior is more normal? Both are Hummelincki.
 
Yeah he is in his den with one eye peering out at me. He only comes out to take a fiddler crab. when I get close to the tank and look at him he doesn't hide, but flashes colors at me. In three days he ate 2 fiddler crabs, 1 coral banded shrimp (didn't plan on that), and 2 hermit crabs. Only thing that worries me is his color sometimes he will change to grey almost white.
 
My only experience with hummelincki is a wc that I hosted for 7 months and a brief encounter with one in the wild (and my new little one that has been with me for less than a week). I think you will find he will become more interactive (unless he is a she) the more time you spend near the tank. However, I have also kept mercatoris and the six sibblings I raised were all very different. One would interact nightly and come out at feeding time even if the lights were still on, one hid for months but would finally take shrimp at the end of a pipette and the others were either extremely shy and not seen for days (sometimes weeks) at a time. The captive bred from that group were not at all interactive.

The grey does seem to indicate stress or possibly age but Octane would show that color and then bounce back. Anytime he stayed gray for a day I would do an extra water change even though I did not detect anything unusual. This always seemed to help. I can't say why but he would perk up appreciably. You might try adding an airstone in a tube (to keep the bubbles near the top) as I half suspect they need more oxygen exchange as they age even though there was an excessive open flow in my sump. Also, full salt vs reef salt (1.026 vs 1.023) and a PH closer to 8.4 are recommended and where I keep my octo tanks.
 
He will only turn grey for a second then goes back to "normal". I'm just worried my lighting is too intense (65 watt power compacts with an actinic blue bulb)
 
Good question. In Octane's tank we ran one 65 watt about 18" away from the top of the tank. In the new tank we put in two 35 watt running long ways so it is like a single 35 watt and Serendipity seems to think it is too much light. She has created a den under the rock in the sand (Octane never messed with the substrate but there was a UG of sorts under his sand). Initially she came out with the lights on but the last two days she has not ventured out of her den until at least one side was turned off. We are thinking that they may be light sensitive when young and will probably alter the left and right sides for awhile (I have to get another timer first).

If he is only greying for a short time (I forgot you said he is a baby), I don't think is it suggestive of a major problem.
 

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