unfortunate newbie has a blue ring

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chaostheory;121321 said:
Don't worry about it. People from the store traveled 40 minutes to come and take it back, they gave me my money back and I'm already making plans to get another octopus. Considering that I managed to keep a Blue ring alive and happy in a biocube, I think I'll be able to keep a easier species in a 75-90 gallon tank, any recommendations on species. I would like a hardy species.

Most of them are reasonably hardy once established in a proper tank. Just try to get a small/young one with most if not all arms intact. If you read the other journals there are different members keeping different kinds and anyone will be happy to tell you where they got theirs. It will help give you an idea of what kind you would prefer.

Right now it seems that O. hummellinki, O. briareus, and A. aculeatus are regularly available online. Any of those would be fine in a 75-90 gallon tank.
 
chaostheory;121321 said:
Don't worry about it. People from the store traveled 40 minutes to come and take it back, they gave me my money back and I'm already making plans to get another octopus. Considering that I managed to keep a Blue ring alive and happy in a biocube, I think I'll be able to keep a easier species in a 75-90 gallon tank, any recommendations on species. I would like a hardy species.

Thanks for the update, and I'm glad this got resolved without any major problems for anyone. And yes, you should be proud of your octo-keeping success even with this craziness. AM pretty much covered everything I would say, good luck with the new tank!

Oh, yeah, and if you ever do find your camera cable, I'd be interested in seeing the bluering pics...
 
Hooray! This is great news - I'm very glad they gave you a refund and took responsibility for removing it from your home. It sounds like you will do nicely with a better species since you've evidently kept this alive quite well. In a 75-90 gallon you could keep a small-to-medium species pretty happy - a briareus or a bimac perhaps.

Did they take the whole biocube away with them?
 
If the blue ring is indeed back in the hands of the store, (who really should be reported) I would recommend a bimac as the best "pet" octopus. Yes, they may bite, but they don't cause death for humans, and many can be trained to eat out of your hand easily, without fear of ending up dead.
 
twisted arms

One minor point on blue-ring biology. Chaostheory mentioned that "several of her tentacles are doing some sort of a twist." In H. lunulata there is a behavior that we call "arm tip twirling" that is fairly common. We are currently engaged in a study to determine what initiates it and how it functions. Initially we thought it was sensory, but recent discoveries suggest that it could be aposomatic. If this was the behavior Chaostheory saw, it does not necessarily mean that the animal was stressed or in decline.

Roy
 
Neogonodactylus;121331 said:
One minor point on blue-ring biology. Chaostheory mentioned that "several of her tentacles are doing some sort of a twist." In H. lunulata there is a behavior that we call "arm tip twirling" that is fairly common. We are currently engaged in a study to determine what initiates it and how it functions. Initially we thought it was sensory, but recent discoveries suggest that it could be aposomatic. If this was the behavior Chaostheory saw, it does not necessarily mean that the animal was stressed or in decline.

Roy

Roy, does the behavior you are studying look anything like this?

Photo and Video Storage | Photobucket

I only saw my male Mercs doing this and the only one that did it nightly was the friendliest of the 4 (Sisturus). I got the impression it was a feeding behavior as there was nothing to warn off ...
 
Somewhat. We have also seen it in a few other dwarf species. The most consistent trigger I have found in blue-rings is when one male mounts and inserts into a second. The recipient will often "twirl" for several minutes.

Roy
 
When you observe two males mating, are both sexually mature?

The Merc in the video showed the twirling behavior nightly for at least a month. It was so common that his name was chosen for the "rattle snake" behavior. He was in a tank with another male that had not yet sexually matured and I observed (and also poorly photographed) the sexually mature male attempt a mating (ie, the dominant male is the one in the video). After the slower to mature male showed signs of enlarged suckers, I occassionally saw the twirling behavior with him but not as often or for the duration as with the more active male (and only occassionaly with the other two sibbling males that were housed in a larger tank with a single female). I only had one female in the group and she stayed in her den most of her adult life and I could not observe to say if she also showed this behavior.
 
We have seen insertions by males into other sexually mature males in several species including H. lunulata, O. wolfi and O. mercatoris. It seems more likely to occur in species that mount, but it also happens in octopus that don't.

Roy
 
Roy,
Most interesting. I was so pleased that I had managed to pair a male and female (particularly this male) and so disappointed later to discover that Medusa was also male. In the tank with two males and one female, I did not observe any interaction between the odd male and either the female or the other male but I did see two matings with the same female and the same male (the second mating was AFTER the eggs hatched). From your observations, is it clear that the males know (bad choice of words) the other octopus is not female? Was there a female in the tank? Have you seen other sperm release behavior when there was only one sexually mature octopus in a tank that had never had the opportunity to mate? I am wondering if releasing sperm is a physical necessity at some point in the male's life.
 
Urrrr.... D...? Is the great pyramid great and pyramidal? Is the Great Wall of China great and non-pyramidal? Does MĂĽnster smell? Is Pi a numerically undescribable constant? Is 1961 Chateau d'Yquem to die for (especially in combination with a fresh pear tarte tatin)? Do cats meow? Take some time and the answer will surely come to you :wink:
 
Wow. Lotta interesting talk in this thread. I think ill throw my 2 cents into several of these things.

1. Chaostheory, dude if I were you, i'd be freakin pissed at that fish store, as is you may be in the position for a lawsuit. Blue rings are cool, but from what i've heard they arent very good to keep (venom aside), just because of their short lifespan of somethin like 6 months. Don't quote me on that i'm goin off of memory. But yea, they can be expensive for being so short lived. All the species that these guys are recommending are real good. Since you're in Florida, it should be pretty easy to get a Briareus. I dunno about the others mentioned, unlike these guys I am not an octo-encyclopedia.

2. Irwin had that comin. He lived through pissin off so many wild animals, it was a given that one of them would eventually kill him. I'm just suprised it wasn't one of those massive crocodiles he worked with. He really knew how to piss them off.

-Keith
 
Steve was an extremely affable man, the sort who would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it, and helped a whole generation of kids get into learning about wildlife.

That being said, he was slightly off in the mind, by thinking that he could "out think" an animal. Millions of years of development have made some of nature's predators into almost eerily perfect killing machines. The reason people aren't killed more often is that you really have to force them into a situation where they will actually harm a human.

Blue ring octopus are wonderful reef dwelling species that have perfectly adapted to their niche. They should be left there.
 
Let's keep it civilized, shall we? There's no need for offensive e-mails that were sent in private to go public and there is likewise certainly no need for half baked insults towards the poster in case, who is only trying to do the right thing. Let's leave it at that.
 
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