Rescued an octopus from an Asian Food Market today

Joined
Dec 6, 2009
Messages
294
Location
Herndon, VA
Stopped into an Asian Food Market today and was saddened to see a bunch of octopuses in a tank, all dead with the exception of this one and possibly another one, but this one was moving around and looking very sad to be in there... it's different than buying a "don't encourage them" type of thing from a local fish store, as this is a food source and they're going to bring them in regardless... anyway, I couldn't help myself. It's currently in a 10 gallon tank as that's the best I could throw together with cold water and an ice probe to keep it cool until I figure out what it is (tank is woefully small for it, it's arms stretch across the tank and can curl up the wall while it's in the corner). My guess is that it's from the West Coast as it was in with abalone and I think that they are collected in California waters, but no idea. Here are some pictures that I sent to the National Zoo to get an ID from a friend there in the Invert House. The ones where it's just sitting there are from when the lights were on, the ones where it's stretched out are from when it was dark and I turned on the lights.

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Solution
Macropus is the name of a group of octopuses and they come in many sizes (I have had two I believe are in the complex, Puddles is dwarf sized and Beldar small but not dwarf, Roy's latest is growing like a weed and is at least a medium sized animal). Norman's Cephalopods A World Guide suggests that variabilis may be a member of this complex and it appears to be the primary food octopus in Korea so that's likely as good as we are going to get on ID. For temperatures, I would suggest attempting the cooler end of the water temperatures around Korea as it is not likely an arctic animal (they are looking at harvesting some in the northern extremes though but most current food octos are still found in warmer waters). If you can extend...
Interesting! The last photo possibly. Any luck with food yet? I have been asking my dining director to order in a live octopus for me but so far he has not been able to, but being I now have Inkler it would not be a good time. I hope he makes it!
 
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My husband has been wanting to do the same thing although the few times we have gone to the Asian market, no live octopusus, a lot of live crabs and other stuff. I really hope your are successful. I am very interested to see how this plays out. Keeping my :fingerscrossed:
 
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Unfortunately, it didn't make it through the night. It was losing color last night and this morning it was dead. My 2 year old cried. I did, however, get ahold of someone who spoke English there in the fish department and they informed me these are shipped from overseas. I am thinking that dwhatley is correct, that this is a variabilis, but the macropus is definitely a possibility, too. The octopus' chromatophores (I think I'm remembering the term correctly) opened up and exposed the coloration more when I lifted it out of the tank and it definitely had some red color with white dots on it. I examined the modified arm as well and it looked more like a variabilis arm in one identification paper I found than the other ones, but there was no picture of macropus. If this in fact variabilis, I'm very unsure of long term temperature issues. The variabilis looks to be endemic to the South China Sea (could be reading that incorrectly) which has pretty warm water temperatures but one paper I found on them states that they are a temperate species. No idea which direction to go with this one but I'm on my way to the store to see if they have more and to try and get a healthier specimen. I've had two octopuses before, an unknown that I never saw for 2 months before it died when a housesitter freaked out and unplugged my system without calling me and a blue ring that died after a couple of days. I have wanted to get another octopus for a long time and at this cost and with the knowledge that I am not going to encourage them to get more of these as they are going to do it anyway, I'm going to give it another try.
 
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Macropus is the name of a group of octopuses and they come in many sizes (I have had two I believe are in the complex, Puddles is dwarf sized and Beldar small but not dwarf, Roy's latest is growing like a weed and is at least a medium sized animal). Norman's Cephalopods A World Guide suggests that variabilis may be a member of this complex and it appears to be the primary food octopus in Korea so that's likely as good as we are going to get on ID. For temperatures, I would suggest attempting the cooler end of the water temperatures around Korea as it is not likely an arctic animal (they are looking at harvesting some in the northern extremes though but most current food octos are still found in warmer waters). If you can extend your tentative social friendship with you market people, see if you can find what country exports their live food as well as what day of the week the shipments arrive. An interesting aspect of this animal, if it is variabilis is that it is a large egg species so there is some viability of tank raising a few young.

Like some of our other members, I hope you will post what you find as this would be alternative source for octopuses if they survive and would not be pulling animals from the wild for our aquariums. One of the reasons I like using Tom for briareus is that they are crab trap by-catch that would be killed if we did not buy them. It is more an attitude than an impact thought but it has appeal.
 
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Solution
:angelpus: RIP Rescued Octopus. Thanks for trying to save him.

On thing that might be worth looking into is the breeding of octopuses in Asia for food. I've seen some references to this and have been told that the Japanese raise an ocotpus similar to the bimac as food. No doubt other species are farmed as well, perhaps in other places. This ocotpus might not be wild caught.

Nancy
 
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I went in again today and picked out the smallest one they had that appeared to be the healthiest. This may be a very difficult process in finding one that is going to survive, though. I did speak to someone today and they told me that Thursdays are the day they typically get them in so I'm going to see if I can check back in on those days. In regards to the identification, I am leaning away from variabilis now. My reason is that I have yet to see any cirri above any of their eyes and the one identification paper I can find states that they have 5-8 cirri above each eye with one being more pronounced than the others.

For this second one, I decided that the tank was not helping as it was too small. I moved the tank to my workshop which hovers at around 50 degrees. This tank has built in filtration that I gutted long ago and now simply serves as a tank with a few empty built in chambers. I added a bag of carbon and phosphate remover along with a makeshift bubbler for carbon filtration made out of a Del Monte or Dole (can't remember which) plastic peaches jar and also drilled the back of this tank to install the ice probe. I figured that with a maxi-jet 1200 as the return pump I would be adding heat to the water and the ice probe could combat that heat addition and equal it out.

I still have 2 emerald crabs in there with the octopus, same ones that were with the other one. It has shown no interest in food, either, but it's only been in the tank for a few hours and had some adjustment to go through. One thing that is mildly encouraging, at least I think it is, is the fact that these guys (not sure if this is a male or female) seem to be producing strings of excrement, some of which have some actual black substance in them, some of which are clear. I am hoping that this means that it has had at least some nutrition recently and that it's not too emaciated to survive.

One other thing I noticed about these is that they have very "boxy" arms. They are squared off and the top of the arms, at least the ones I can make out clearly, are flattened and have square corners on all sides.

I wish that there was a store that had live ghost shrimp near me, although I'm not sure that they would survive being added to 50 degree water (right now it's at 58). I also may try a goldfish or a rosie, neither of which is a good option for the long term but if it can get it to start eating, then that'll be worth it. I am leaning towards a goldfish as I can temperature acclimate it without it dying and then release it into the tank to see if there's any sort of feeding response based on a fish swimming around. I may also try a live mussel or a clam, but I am not sure that this octopus has enough strength to open one and I'm not wanting to foul the water, despite the cold temperatures.
 
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I know you are worried about filtration but I worry that the tank may be too cold. I have only kept warmer water species and I know some of the Pacific's need 60 degreeish temps but I wish there was a way to get a better idea of proper temperature as a warm water species will die below 60 (as evidenced by recen die offs in FL with the 57 degree waters). The bimacs of the Pacific can live at 70 or even 72 but I don't believe the rubescens can take that much heat (this is not rubescens). Unfortunately, the macropus species complex are found in both warm and cold water so even if the complex is a correct guess based on the spots and arm proportions, it does not help with temperature.

The cirri for ID was a great find but you can't discount the species yet as they don't always show the eye horns (note none of the photos show them) and several days of observation will be needed. One additional thing I found interesting is that the arm tip in the male is overly large (up to 1/5 the arm length). The fact that you could notice a difference in the arm tip in the original animal may suggest that this species has a longer ligula (the tip is not usually easily noticed in the ones we commonly keep).
 
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For temperature I went off of what the holding tank had them in at the food market, they kept theirs at 50 degrees in a commercial lobster tank (amazingly with only a loose cover resting on top with no escapees, or at least not that I could tell as they didn't weight it down at all and I figure they would if they were constantly crawling out). I also consulted with the National Zoo and they keep their Giant Pacific Octopus at 50 degrees, so this was a guideline for me to at least start. The temp is at 52 in the tank right now and the octopus looks better than yesterday, but the crabs are still fine. When I walked into the room it reacted to seeing me and moved a bit, a reaction that I was not getting yesterday at the store and also not getting with the last one.

In regards to the ligula (thanks for that, I didn't know what it was when I read about it and so kept on calling it a modified arm), I don't know that it was 1/5 the length of the arm, but it was probably around an inch in length. Whether the rest of the arm was only 4 inches I couldn't tell and don't have the body any longer, but my guess is that it was far greater than that length. Is 1" an unusual length for a ligula? I know you said it could be up to 1/5, but I think the arm was probably closer to 8-10 inches. Also, is that a full stretched out measurement or when it's relaxed? Man, how in the world do you identify an animal that has the ability to manipulate not only it's shape and texture, but just about every other aspect of its body?!?!

One other update, it has better coloration this morning. Thinking about adding some sand to the system as well as if it is in fact a smooth skinned octopus it may be a bottom dweller and may appreciate this. This may also help to buffer the water a bit, although probably not much given the temperature. I figure that the more natural an environment I can provide the better off the octopus is and hopefully it can regain some of its appetite. No optimism on this one for now as I can understand how far gone this one could be already, but if I can get it to eat then I will have some optimism.

Question regarding octopuses and feeding - do they hunt purely by eyesight and touch or do they have a sense of smell as well? I'm thinking that freshwater species explode with scent when they are added to saltwater so this might trigger a feeding response in the octopus. Was thinking a fiddler crab might be worth a shot, too.
 
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The whole modified arm is called a hectocotylus (originally thought to be a worm when it was named) and the specialized tip the ligula. It is odd to really be able to notice the tip with just your eyes so I felt it significant that you mentioned it and then noticed that my book and the description document both point out that it is particularly large on the Korean species.

I would not put a lot of faith in the temperatures of the fish tank at the market. Keeping them cold slows deterioration and helps with the water quality. Clams and oysters are kept on ice too but don't live in anywhere near that temperature.

Question regarding octopuses and feeding - do they hunt purely by eyesight and touch or do they have a sense of smell as well?
All of the above. Fiddlers are considered the universal octo food and we have seen all species take them willingly.
 
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Hey Mr. Lin,

I would definitely try the fiddlers as they definitely tend to be a prefered food of octo's and many keepers use them as their primary food. I would clip the big pincher off however because you don't know if your octopus will eat it, nor what kind of interaction they will have. Many people clip it off anyways.

dwhatley;149782 said:
Keeping them cold slows deterioration and helps with the water quality. Clams and oysters are kept on ice too but don't live in anywhere near that temperature.

That's exactly what I was thinking. If they keep them cold then they are less likely to try to escape, their metabolism lowers so they will live longer, and if they do pass, chances are they will remain edible for longer.

I personally would probably keep it at 60 because it's a pretty good middle ground. If this one passes (fingers crossed that it doesn't), I would try and find out where these octopuses are coming from before you get another. As D and Nancy have already pointed out, this could be a warmer or cooler water animal so you can't really judge where to keep the temp. It may turn out that the octopuses end up coming from all over the place to a central distribution center and then shipped the grocery stores, so it could be any type of octopus from anywhere in the area. Or, and preferably, though I have to say probably less likely, it could be CB. Good luck again!
 
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You said that the octopus are being sold mixed in with the abalone. Is there any indication that the abalone and the octopus are being caught together, or could they simply be mixed together in the distribution process? If the former, then it's probably easier to find out where the abalone are coming from and/or to identify the abalone species, and figure out the octopus species by geographic association.
 
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