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

Awesome videos! Haggs, Hatch-ko is gorgeous!

I think I figured out the cause of my nitrate spike and crappy water and Seven not eating for almost a week. I found my turbo snail shell today, and it was empty- I assume Seven ate it. It had leftover crap inside and stank like crazy when I removed it. That was my last turbo snail. I'm glad Seven got to "hunt" it, but can't he do it while I'm around? :nyah: I did a major water change again, and hopefully things go back to normal.

I'll probably add another snail or two over the weekend, and I'll try to keep a closer eye on them.
 
More than likely, the snail died and then decomposed (octos don't leave much :rolleyes: in a shell to foul the water). This would definitely cause an ammonia->nitrite->nitrate spike, the first two being the dangerous points. The smaller the tank, the more impact even small critters can have.
 
Hmmm. There wasn't a lot of crap left, just black bits that spread in the water when I fished he shell out. The water doesn't stink, but the shell reaaaaally did. The same thing happened with the previous 3 snails back in the 10g tank.
 
You can pretty much count on, if it is dead and smells foul, it will produce an ammonia spike. We often used dead shrimp to create such spikes to advance the cycle (increase the bacteria that converts ammonia to nitrite to nitrate rapidly) of a new aquarium.
 
You might try a few small saltwater hermit crabs. They are hardy and may be eaten but either way they will help keep the aquarium clean. They are so small that an inadvertent death will have almost no impact, especially if there are several as they will cannibalize their dead but not usually their own live.
 
I've been trying to look for hermit crabs for weeks! It's odd how I can't find them anywhere considering how common they are. Unfortunately, I'm smack in the middle of the city, and the nearest beach is a good 3 hours away. My LFS has red ones, but they're too pricey as a one time meal.

The rainy season has started here, and I'm hoping that means the markets have live crabs soon. July usually marks the season of Asian shore crabs. I hope I can keep a few pieces alive.
 
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Our attempt at better photography
 
It has now been a week of Seven hanging out in the upper corner of the tank. He sticks to the glass and is mostly in the water, with one or two arms out. He has not hidden in his den for a week.

It's nice that I can see him all the time now, and partly weird. He's okay with me bothering him sometimes, allowing me to touch. Then after a while he would curl up in an obvious "do not disturb me" position, but would not move from his corner. He seems rather attached to the filter tube that's there.
 
Is there water flow near the filter tube? My strictly observational guessing (no read scientific literature) suggests that their brachial hearts (the two that oxygenate the blood from the gills) seem to weaken in senescence (in addition to seeing older animals start hanging around Koralias and filters, some of my dwarfs appeared to have a "stroke" like incident where one side stopped functioning). The extra waterflow may help their breathing if my thoughts hold any water.

I think I have mentioned that I have also have conjectured that their skin may become "itchy" and petting scratches the itch.
 
Yes, there is water flow! I thinking along the lines of that as well, that he likes the water. I thought it was more 'soothing', like being near the beach ;p Ah, to humanize your pets.

Tho, Seven likes being contrary. It seems like everytime I post something about him, he goes and does something different. Just this morning (before reading your reply) I found in a different corner, farther away from the filter.
 
Aaaand here I go again, with my newb mistakes.

My friend gave me two pistol shrimps without claws, about 2 inches long each. I actually did a search first (I'm learning a little!) and seeing no negative results, decided to put them in the tank with Seven. Also, since Seven caught/killed live sand shrimp a few weeks ago, and these guys having no claws anymore, I figured they should be safe until Seven decides he's hungry, or they're too annoying.

So the first problem was that the two pistols didn't seem to like each other. I didn't want it to become a problem with them killing each other, so I decided to remove one.

As the pistol was trying to get away from me, it bumped into Seven, who immediately caught it. I ran to get my phone to take video of it. The entire time, I thought Seven was trying to kill it for disturbing him. It was only after a while that my companion realized that Seven was struggling to get away from the shrimp and was trying to push it away. The shrimp looked like it was biting Seven and was refusing to let go. We had to intervene with chopsticks to get them separated- and even that took a while.

Now that I look back at the video, I feel stupid for not realizing sooner what was happening.

Needless to say, the two pistol shrimps were removed from the tank immediately.

The video is low resolution, and a little disturbing and will make you want to throw a pistol shrimp at me. :confused:

 

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