Rescued an octopus from an Asian Food Market today

[davelin315]

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.

 

[corw314]

Any pics yet? I would try not to flash him so as not to add more stress. Sorry to hear about the first but hopeful and keeping fingers crossed for the second!

 

[L8 2 RISE]

Anxiously waiting for updates

 

[Lmecher]

It's been almost a week now. I am so hopeful this new little one is still with us.

 

[davelin315]

Sorry, this one made it only a couple of days. It looked to me like it had some significant arm injuries at some point because it tried to shed both front arms with one coming nearly completely off. I did find out that they buy these from "a Korean guy" and that they are from overseas... I am going in again tomorrow night as they get them in on Thursdays. I'll see what they get. I may see if I can contact the guy who they get them from and see what to make of it.

dwhatley, what temp does the book say about the Korean octopus? I am able to get the temp to hover at about 51 degrees in my workshop, but if it should in reality be higher, then I'll bump up the temperature. I did try a couple of different food sources but none of them were successful with triggering feeding. I tried a red clawed crab (small freshwater), a goldfish, a rosie, and of course, I had the two emeralds in with it as well.

 

[davelin315]

Hmmm... did some checking. Korea is around 35 degrees N latitude, which is about the same latitude as North/South Carolina. The water temperatures there range from about 50 degrees up to 77 degrees. I may try to put the next octopus into my reef in a container to see how it does...

 

[DWhatley]

I am so glad you are not totally giving up on this idea!

Unfortunately, my book only shows a general distribution of Japan, southern tip of Russia, south to Tiawan. Korea is not even mentioned directly but I found the species looking for food octos in Korea (based upon its similarity to the other two known Korean octos once I realized where I had seen something hautingly similar).

Go very slowly bring it up to temp. They have no known way to create heat or regulate their body temperatue (thanks again for that info Roy and note I refrained from using the term cold blooded ). If it is used to 77ish then even 72 will work initially with a likely desired temp around 75 (again, a little cooler is better than a little warmer). From what we saw in FL somewhere around a sustained 57 is lethal for the Caribbean species (reports from CaptainFish and Tom).

Avoid freshwater fish altogether and fish in general are not a normal diet. One thing you might try that I had success with for a post brood female and have seen waste that shows healthy octos eating it (but that may be from eating critters that eat it, the post brood merc to it directly from a pipette) is Cyclop-eeze (frozen not dried)

 

[Omega]

if you can find out what sea or water area around korea it will help..or even N vs s korea. this site http://atlas.ngii.go.kr/english/explanation/natural_10_4.jsp has some water temps of various seas. if you can get anymore info on where they are collected.. there are lots of science websites that store temperature records by year..ill gladly look it up of you can get a more exact spot.

 

[jhauris]

Davelin, I'm in No. VA too. Do you mind sharing where this market is?

 

[davelin315]

It's the Grand Mart in Centreville, at the corner of 28 and 29.

Was there again tonight and bought 2 of them this time. The shipment came in today and they had some pretty large ones, but the biggest one that had the thickest arms also had what looked like a gas embellism in its body, so I avoided that one. There were two of them that were together, one was sitting on top of the other and was sitting very upright and had nodules on its body that it was displaying and also had a nice pattern on it so I got that one but he grabbed the one below it, too, when fishing it out. The one started to crawl away so I decided to try it with two of them and see where that led me.

One absolutely HUGE difference I noted right off the bat, other than the display of texture on the skin, they inked in the bag... the other ones never inked at all, so they are obviously in better health to actually have ink left to give off. Anyway, since they inked, I put floated them in the tank and one immediately crawled out and the other one took some coaxing. I left the lights on in there and am cooling down an emerald crab to see what happens. The last ones lasted for days in the tank so I figure I'll acclimate this one down and then see if they eat it... the goldfish and the rosie were just to see if I could trigger a feeding response, I figure that if something is moving it might entice them to eat more than a crab that is sitting there trying to hide. The last one at least pushed away the fish when I put them on the end of a stick, so we'll see where the various foods end up as far as triggering feeding.

I did do some research on the seas around South Korea (I'm guessing they're not dealing with North Korean entities here!) and based on the latitude being similar to North Carolina/Southern Virginia I am basing water temps on that. During the winter months the water temp of the Atlantic goes down to around 50 so I unhooked the ice probe which will probably bring the temp up to around 56 or so. During the summer months the water temp of the Atlantic at that latitude, at least off the east coast of the US, goes up to around 77, so I will slowly bring that temp up if they do OK. I figure that the colder water will also reduce their need to eat as much so hopefully this gives them a chance to start eating. We'll see where this leads this time, but I think this will be the last time I try it if I'm unsuccessful. The price tag goes up each time I try it and it's hard to see them dead in there, although I may try it again if I can find out when they actually come in.

 

[davelin315]

By the way, they look very similar to the octopus that's on the screen background for the site. Neither has the white dot on the body, but I'll have to continue looking at color for them.

 

[DWhatley]

Not a likely match (even though you did worry initially about a GPO). I believe the one at the top of the page is the NZ/Aussie equivalent of our GPO being one of two giant species (O.maorum or Pinnoctopus cordiformis - I think - Jean help me out here)

 

[davelin315]

One of them is holding color constant and the other is flashing color a bit as it breathes, kind of like a wave across its body. It's arms are very active, though, up to the tips as it curls them around. It has also wedged itself under a rock to hide, something that only one of them so far has done, although not as well as this one. Is the rapid color changing any indication of health or discomfort?

 

[CaptFish]

The display is called passing cloud. With Legs, my braireus, she did it alot when she was younger but the only time I see it now is when she hunts.

 

[Lmecher]

I can't wait to see photos of these guys.

 

[davelin315]

Trying not to disturb them too much right now, but will snap some photos tomorrow if they are doing better. Temp has risen slowly but surely and is at 54 degrees now, will most likely get up a couple more degrees and then level off a bit. I'll continue to slowly increase the temperature.