[Octopus]: Seven + - Unidentified - Newbie with Octopus meant for sushi

I was able to take a short video of Nine coming out of his favorite hiding place. (We say he's named after the Stormtrooper, but really, it just shows how little our creativity is when they are named Seven, Eight and Nine).

 
Today is the one week mark!

Seven's personality seems to be coming out a little. He doesn't hide anymore when humans are around. This morning, I gave him a piece of de-shelled clam which he pushed away. I offered it again, and he proceeded to grab it and throw it back at me. I guess he wasn't hungry :lol:

Nine is coming out of hiding a little more, but I still don't see much of him.

I'm gonna be able to borrow another tank this week, so I can hopefully separate the two soon.
 
Rejecting a food offering by throwing it at the food slave is an often reported antic :biggrin2:

You can try feeding thawed table shrimp on a feeding stick (bamboo skewers work very well as feeding sticks). Live shrimp can be fed if they are available (you can find them as fish bait here near the ocean). Small live crabs (claws disabled) or freshly removed claws of larger crabs are usually accepted (I hunt our local Asian market for loose claws in their live blue crab bins and then freeze them).
 
We did defrosted shrimp the first few days, but they seemed to only like stuff inside the head and would leave the body. Not too sure about this as the first few days were pretty much "cross fingers, I hope this works" and they would often hide. Will definitely try again, as grocery shrimp is the most accessible.

We gave scallops a few night nights ago, they refused it. Might have been not hungry, or might have just not liked it. We left 5 live clams in the tank- they've all been eaten. I don't know if the octos opened them up, or if the clams died before the octos consumed them. (I saw one dead and decided to leave it- but when I came back for it later on, it was gone). All of the snails are still alive.

And Seven and Nine swapped personalities, haha. Seven escaped again when we were cleaning the tank last Tuesday. This time he managed to cross the room where he faced off with my cat. Seven won. (Well, there wasn't even fight, the cat just went to look and immediately got freaked out) But after that incident, he's been hiding a lot (but we always catch him peeking!). It's Nine now who comes out more, and is more naughty. He doesn't like it when we leave food for Seven- he grabs the food and tosses it to the other corner of the tank.

They'll be upgrading to a 20gallon soon! Is there really no way they could co-exist in one tank? I'm really hoping they could.
 
A 20 gallon is still too small for a single animal (40 or larger is needed and we usually add a sump for filtration and additional water) and you will have to be VERY diligent with the water changes even after the live rock assists with decomposing waste. Octopuses continue to grow throughout their lives. This species does live in close proximity but has been observed infrequently to cannibalize its own in the wild and @Neogonodactylus has observed a female killing a male in his lab when they were introduced for mating.

I have never had luck with scallops. Every time I have tried them the octo eats exactly 1 and never accepts another.

Try removing the heads and shells on the shrimp and offering it on a stick. Start with a piece about the size of its eye and gradually increase the size.

Hermit crabs are often accepted by this species. I have not had luck using them with other species here but others report consumption.

Small live crabs are almost never refused by any species.

You might want to keep your camera nearby when you do water changes :biggrin2:
 
Nine looks like he's dying. He somehow got one tentacle stuck inside the filtration pump. We were able to get him out by pulling on the tentacle (would cutting it have been a better option?). He's still breathing now, but barely moving. :cry:
 
First, cover the pump intake with netting to prevent future mishaps. The easiest way to do this is to use a zippered filter bag but any kind of netting can be secured with a rubber band (preferably not colored).

Octopuses can lose an arm fully to the mantle and then regrow them. This happens often in the wild during predatory attacks. However, they are very susceptible to stress and the incident and extraction are the biggest concern. I have never had to remove an octopus from any kind of arm entrapment so I am not sure of the best way to extract one that is trapped. Knowing that aculeatus (as well as other species) can drop part of an arm at will at specialized places along the arm, I would most likely turn off the pump and wait to see if the octopus could extract itself. If that did not work my guess is a clean cut would be better than a shredded end. The only time I remember thinking about cutting off an arm was for an animal who had regrown an arm that was somewhat twisted with misaligned suckers and the damage seemed to give him problems maneuvering. I opted (partially because of squeamishness around the thought of causing pain) to leave the arm alone. Curiosity has always made me wonder if I had opted to sever the arm if it would have grown back with more or less deformity but he got by with the alignment issue without noticeable impact.
 
:fingerscrossed: for Seven. Nine's arm loss would not have directly caused its demise but, in addition to the stress, it may have already been losing ground when it became entangled. Water quality is so important for these guys and they are a lot of work even in the best of environments but, as I suspect you are finding out, they are worth the effort.
 
We moved to a bigger tank! It's the 20g one- still not as big as the recommended size, but definitely better than the 10g one. Was also finally able to purchase a protein skimmer. Hubby is slowly getting hooked- so hopefully he'll agree to a bigger tank soon :wink: [Our tanks are all just borrowed as we haven't really decided if we should 'invest' in this.]

Seven is loving all the new hiding places. He comes out and gives a short dance usually when the humans are eating dinner. But otherwise, he's usually in hiding. I'm hoping it's just an initial adjustment period to the new tank. All 7 of the snails are gone! I assume eaten. One day they were all alive, then one day, poof. No wonder Seven has been refusing everything I've been giving.

Was able to take some pics. Would it be possible to id if he's a he or she from these photos?

The other pic is Seven hanging around Crocodile Cove. :biggrin2:
 

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The mantle (body, ie the sack that holds all the organs that many people mistake for the head) to arm ratio and location still suggest one of the Abdopus complex. Do you often see "horns" above the eyes?

I am a bit concerned about the way Seven is holding the tips of his arms. The "corkscrew" positioning is often a sign of a problem but the near death look I have seen on the Caribbean species has involved the full arm, not just the tips. It may be a sign of stress that will go away once he acclimates to the new tank but keeps an eagle eye on the water (it may be stress from the water due to the death of nine which should be mitigated by the new tank if you used new water).
 
Oh no, and here I was all excited that he came out for photos.

I'm not sure about horns. It has a little tip thing, but I don't think it's a horn. Here's our best close up.
 

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