[Octopus]: Taba - Jocco's 'Pus

Jocco

Vampyroteuthis
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Staten Island, NY
'Pus is not a name, but we needed a thread title!

First Video, I dropped in a snail while we were getting the bucket and drip tube ready.

Second Video, We thought the ceph ate the snail... nope.

Third Video, Ceph seemed to be trying to escape, but we recorded the movement to maybe catch gender and type of octopus :smile:
 
Photos!
 

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First observations and guesses. I feel comfortable calling 'Pus a dwarf. I am assuming Caribbean (if this is wrong then my next guess is wrong) and tentatively suggest Octopus joubini. The most common Caribbean dwarf is O. mercatoris but the arms look too long, the typical eye star is not showing, the white patch on the front is not a typical merc display and the activity is much higher than is normal for a merc. I have never seen a confirmed O. joubini but the observations seem to fit the descriptions I can find.

I saw no indication of a a curled third arm so I will also suggest 'Pus is female.
 

Ok. While trying to set up the drip. My hose was too thick and we didn't have a bucket or container between a huge orange bucket from Home Depot or a soup bowl... so we did a 2 hour in tank/bag acclimation. We waited till the ceph's breathing slowed and it was in a resting position comfortably. It flashed once dramatically from reddish to very white. And while it was dancing around it changed colors.
Displayed that white patch between the eyes.

Fingers Crossed.
 
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When you try shrimp again, experiment with something much smaller (about the size of the eye - green pea sized). Hermit crabs have been a successful food for some keepers as well as small crabs.

Snails, not so much. When you first thought it ate a snail I was going to suggest to look again as this is pretty common. The operculum is a pretty good trap door and even an octopus can't get in. Hermits have no way to seal the shell and are somewhat easier to eat. If it gets used to hand/stick feeding, even the hermits may not become supper (I never had luck feeding them but many others have).
 
Oh goodness... O. Joubini.
LFS kept bringing up the east coast, I'll call them tomorrow about where the ceph was caught.

Short lived, nocturnal, female, small egg variety. So I got the coconut filled candy in the box of chocolates (I dislike coconut very much) :frown:

Alright, well, it is going to have the best darn short life EVAR!
 
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When you try shrimp again, experiment with something much smaller (about the size of the eye - green pea sized). Hermit crabs have been a successful food for some keepers as well as small crabs.

Snails, not so much. When you first thought it ate a snail I was going to suggest to look again as this is pretty common. The operculum is a pretty good trap door and even an octopus can't get in. Hermits have no way to seal the shell and are somewhat easier to eat. If it gets used to hand/stick feeding, even the hermits may not become supper (I never had luck feeding them but many others have).

I thought I cut a teeny piece, wow, ok. Smaller it is. It ate one of the three pieces I put in after Roc realized it was having trouble with the snail. I guess it was the smallest of the 3.
 
You may not be disappointed in this one. Sedna kept a suspected joubini (Pandora) and found it far more active than O. mercatoris. You will see a lot of references to O. joubini that are actually O. mercatoris so looking on the internet can be confusing (and is why I don't seem to be able to find a good definition that would separate the two - other than egg size). Here is the only paper (no photos - I wrote and asked for some but never got a response) we have in the scientific papers section.
 
No matter the species, I was secretly hoping for a male. Regardless, we are beyond excited to have this fantastic apex creature in our lives.

Still alive, in the live rock hole it swam into upon release. There were some arms poking/exploring out of the holes. I put a teeny piece of shrimp on a stick and tapped it around the hole that arms were exploring from. The ceph grabbed it! I don't know if it was eaten. Good sign?
I hope it knows how to get back out.

We cannot see it without a flashlight, in one of the holes. This morning I saw an eye peering out while I fed the tank. Now I see gray suckers, slight greenish sparkle.
 
For flashlight viewing, I recommend finding a red flashlight (or one with a red lens - DIY is fine). The red is miserable for photos but will cause less reaction/hiding from the octopus and allow you to see more of what it is doing. I will admit to cheating on occasion with a new animal (probably the worst time to cheat) and use a white light just to locate and validate survival.

I also prefer a male most of the time (unless I want to try to raise hatchlings) simply for the extended time that you will see/interact with them. However, I have enjoyed all that I have kept. One somewhat positive note of the short lifespan (stretching to call short lifespans positive) is that, unlike a dog or cat who will be with your for years, if the animal is not well suited for your household, the next animal may be exceptional, regardless of species or sex.

You do not need to worry about it getting stuck :biggrin2:. When you see the arms flickering in and out of holes (good rock by the way), it is hunting for food.
 
We hope for the best of the situation :biggrin2: All is well.

I shut the light off at 7pm, no arm action yet at 9pm. Peeked with a light quickly, and got a narrow eye through the rock. So... we wait. We stared at the rock all day today. So much for going to the S.H.E Expo in NYC today.

How does the rest of the tank deal with being under a red light all day? Or do I reserve the red for night time viewing?

Arm movement = hunting, awesome tip. Glad I had the instinct to try food when I saw arms last night! I guess we will wait another couple of hours before trying a feed stick with shrimp.
Or do we try to get 'her' on our schedule and try a feeding in a half that time?

With all the reading and research, I know the first few weeks of behavior isn't 'normal', but reading and doing are completely different, haha.

We were talking today, and the best LR move we did was to take the cap rock off of Sir Stewart's and the peppermints and now the scarlet shrimp's tall rock home. The ceph swam right into the honeycomb of the LR... and is still there. SOOOO GLAD I moved the LR that would have blocked all viewing possibilities.

Rethinking a convo we had with the LFS, their guy had 2 octopus, and they picked the slightly larger one to give me. I wonder how 'mature' this one is and I wonder what the other one was (if it wasn't the same species), fingers crossed for a few good months :smile:
 
You can leave the red light on 24/7, it won't affect anything but photography :roll: (sadly, pictures don't come out at all well, often even if you don't see the red with your eyes).

Within the next week, I would suggest trying to set a schedule but I would wait the extended, not shortened time (ie don't feed for the extra time instead of trying to feed early).
 
We tried the shrimp morsel on a stick bit, octopus had no interest at 10-10:30.
Did a fair amount of "keep away" from a scarlet shrimp lol.
We are keeping our eyes on the rock, waiting for arms.

It ate 1 bit of shrimp at acclimation for sure, and maybe another late last night. So... We wait.
 

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