Varys' babies (O. mercatoris)

[DWhatley]

Greg,
You bring up a good question, "what size are they really and how much do they grow?". I am thinking about trying to set up a ruler that I can easily attach to the outside of the aquarium to try to get a "standardized" measurement with this one. It won't help gauge her but hopefully, I will gain something if I make a point to get a shot at the first of each month.

 

[gholland]

D,
The only reason I even thought about it was because you've made several comments about Trapper's offspring never getting as big as she was. Maybe I will try the ruler too...

 

[DWhatley]

Stick On Ruler

Here is what I have found so far. If you have transparent printer film (I am kind of assuming YOU might) option number two looks usable but I have not experimented with it yet.

http://www.cabelas.com/hprod-1/0002016.shtml

Some printable paper rulers

 

[gholland]

Here's the eye "flash" I was referring to. It looks like it involves chromatophores on the iris. They all seem to do it.... sometimes several times in fairly quick succession (~3 seconds apart).

 

[gholland]

Here's the same clip in wmv format since that last one seems to cause problems for some people.

 

[Animal Mother]

Kalypso's eyes do that as well, gold to red.

 

[DWhatley]

The .wmv worked fine, I don't know what's up with my computer and the mpg.

I saw octane's lids (?) do that once for several seconds (never got a shot though) . They flashed an orange/red color then white for several changes and nothing else was changing or moving so it produced a very erie effect. I made an entry in his log about how that could really look scary in the water. I never saw it in the mercs though.

 

[brand0n]

Here's the same clip in wmv format since that last one seems to cause problems for some people.

works better! thanks

 

[gholland]

Two survivors at 8 months

The 'podes hit the 8 month mark last weekend. Unfortunately, we are now down to two. Somewhere between month 6 and 7, two of the 'podes simply dissappeared. No bodies. Of course we were so focused on having a baby and not spending as many nights staring at the aquarium that anything is possible. I am certain that one of the two remaining 'podes is Beluga... still relatively active and interactive.

 

[gholland]

Here's a video of me feeding Beluga from about a month ago (9/26/08) that I never got around to posting. I was also playing with the new video editor features so the music is courtesy of Aesma Daeva.

 

[DWhatley]

Interesting timing with the music, I actually jumped a little . I am feeding Wiley by hand every night now but he is in the back of the tank and only puts out his arms to capture my offering so even if I could get the camera to capture the feeding there would not be much to see. It also appears that he is eating Cyclop-eze (also fed to the tank daily) as the poop he shot out at me tonight was the tell-tale red color of the food.

 

[gholland]

Beluga sat on my hand completely free of any other surface for the first time this morning. He normally just grabs my hand while sitting on a rock or the glass. I spent about 5 minutes holding him this morning before I deposited him on the macro algae. Didn't seem to mind me touching his mantle and there was still no biting.

 

[DWhatley]

Greg,
I hate to be a spoil sport, but should you go and hunt it up, Trapper would do that in her last week or so. I would finally have to put her down before my hand became a prune. She seemed to like the softer surfaces (pump, glass, my hand) over the live rock, almost as if her arms had become very tender and the live rock was uncomfortable.

 

[gholland]

Nope. Sorry. Hunh-unh. I'm not listening!

In all fairness... I did kinda pry him loose from the glass to hold him. Heh.

 

[DWhatley]

oops, you just reminded me I had not given Wiley his shrimp tonight.

OK, I'm back. He obviously expects to be hand fed now and when I am late he reaches out before my hand is fully in place (painfully cramped at the back of the tank). He will hold my finger (not aggressively now) and take his shrimp but still won't come out of his den. I put a live fiddler in there last night but forgot to look while the lights were still on in the room to see if he caught it. He will be a year old in a week so there is hope that Beluga has just become more of a pet and is not yet ready to leave. Like everyone who has kept these creatures, I keep hoping someone will come up with something really simple that will extend their too short lives. I think it is even harder to understand when you raise them since they stay so timid for so long and then blossom into even more interesting creatures too near the end.