Question for everyone... I am in the process once again of attempting to keep an unknown species of octopus that comes into the local Asian market (threads here [Octopus]: - Asian Food Market Octos - Take 2 and here Rescued an octopus from an Asian Food Market today) for the second time in the past 4 years and upon the death of the last female, I decided to do a dissection of it in an attempt to give more information for a potential ID. Anyway, I do not expect to have a lot of success with any of these as I previously kept one for about 4 months but it never ate, otherwise I have only had one that took food aggressively and two that took it when it was placed on or next to them (the last two). I do not have qualms about attempting this even though most of them don't last even a week since they are being brought in as food and my purchases don't influence the store on whether to but them or not, but am hopeful that I can find success with one at some point in time.
I have learned a lot about them through simply observing, but have yet to have an individual that did well enough for long enough that I could observe natural behavior.
At this point, I am wondering what the possibility is of breeding these... I typically buy two at one time (if I came across a healthy batch of them I would probably buy all of them) and after the dissection discovered that they do have large eggs. Now I am wondering if it is possible if I have a male and a female that die off at about the same time if I could fertilize the eggs by dissecting both the male and female and then attempt to raise them...
Has anyone ever tried to do this? I know that breeding them is difficult to begin with and that I would be harvesting eggs and sperm from a dead or nearly dead octopus, not even sure at what point after death they become non-viable. Curious as to whether cold water helps to preserve the gametes after death. Any information you have or could steer me to would be great, anecdotal or documented.
I have learned a lot about them through simply observing, but have yet to have an individual that did well enough for long enough that I could observe natural behavior.
At this point, I am wondering what the possibility is of breeding these... I typically buy two at one time (if I came across a healthy batch of them I would probably buy all of them) and after the dissection discovered that they do have large eggs. Now I am wondering if it is possible if I have a male and a female that die off at about the same time if I could fertilize the eggs by dissecting both the male and female and then attempt to raise them...
Has anyone ever tried to do this? I know that breeding them is difficult to begin with and that I would be harvesting eggs and sperm from a dead or nearly dead octopus, not even sure at what point after death they become non-viable. Curious as to whether cold water helps to preserve the gametes after death. Any information you have or could steer me to would be great, anecdotal or documented.