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One way glass and an octopus

perke

O. vulgaris
Registered
Joined
Dec 14, 2002
Messages
81
Hi,

I'm posting this here because I think it generally falls under this catagory. Basically I've gotten the aquarium I work at to install one way glass to view our octopus tank. There is a gap between the one way glass and the tank ( to eliminate any vibrations that may be caused by banging on the window). Our octopus can see herself but not see the customers looking at her.I've been monitoring the activity of our common to see if she is hiding more or being more active after the change in viewing for our customers. At the moment it seems that her behaviour is a positive one and that she spends a large amount of time roaming around the tank doing what she wants. What I was wondering was has anybody undertaken studys of this nature before in regards to activity after implementing such actions. Obviously behaviour wise there are the standard text of mesenger and hanlon but I was wondering if there were more up to date papers on this subject. Anyone like to comment?:cry:
 
If I understand it correctly, one way glass needs lighting on the side containing the viewed and needs to be darker on the side containing the viewer so it wouldn't work for nocturnals, correct? If it worked in reverse, it would be great for nocturnals though.

It would be interesting if there is a film you could apply to a standard tank to allow unseen viewing but I think most of us at home want interaction and that means getting them accustomed to seeing us.
 
Your correct you do need lighting on one side to be brighter (the side you want the one way bit on) but as I have it the tank is set slightly back from the window so that the lighting iluminates between the tank and the glass this means that the tank is not as bright for the octopus but gives good viewing for the public. I think it may work for nocturnals if you used a red light as this still gives enough illumination to see things in the tank. There are films that you can apply to glass but I don't know how much research has been done on them (hence why I asked if anyone has had heard of any research on this). The good thing about the way I've got the tank set up now is that the octopus can see me or another aquarist if we are working around the tank (as per usual) but the public don't startle her.
 
I will have to look into the film. I have a side of one tank that faces foot traffic that I would like to continue to leave viewable but would like to reduce the motion for the octo. I am afraid it will be too expensive to play with but I will do some looking :smile: Thanks for the idea, hopefully someone will have done other experiements and will add information.
 

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