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Ceph. Research Questions

You should start thinking about what species you are going to work with and what type of behavior your going to study, because that is how you chose the tank size, etc. you could have a lot of small tanks for holding and one large tank for short term trails or a lot of large tanks for long term trials. One person close by that does a lot of behavior work on ocoptus is Roger Hanlon at MBL. On a side note as far as species the only one you can get a lot of (more than 10) at one time is bimacs and sometimes vulgaris most of the other stuff you can only get a couple at a time.
 
Thanks!

I'm thinking right now we'll probably end up with 1-4 bimacs, depending on how funding and location logistics work themselves out. In the event we can only foster a few individuals, I plan on making a couple larger L shaped tanks and sectioning off one side for trial purposes and using the other half for living space. Finding space for invert research is difficult in a vert-dominated setting....
-O
 
ah a fellow researcher! i myself am just a high school senior, but i did do (well, attempt to do) a project on octo intelligence this year! sadly, the east coast of florida is horrid for obtaining any octopus, so i ended up with a fiesty octopus that is disinterested in any sort of stimulation... mine is a briareus though. def go for a nrcc bimac. i had wanted to get one from them but the idea of shipping an octopus cross-country scared me to death!

as for moving them, another suggestion would be to put the trail tank and home tank side by side and cut a hole in each and secure a glass or acrylic tube inbetween them. just a thought.

off topic, but what were you doing with the stars? i worked with them last year, studying their microlenses! odd, eh?

oh, and the L shaped tanks sound perfect, btw.
 
Thanks again everyone,

Sorry for the long delay, but we've been on break for a week, followed by the blizzard of 2007, so I havn't been around a PC for quite a while. Norge, we're going to be using bimacs and looking at some aspect of their behavior, especially demonstrative learning abilities and the factors or cofactors that enhance these abilities. The real details are still TBA and dependent on the funding we receive from various departments. We're looking into the basics of tank construction this spring, setting up a marine system, and letting it cycle until about August when I'll start to add our research animals. If Octopods don't work out (hopefully they do!) we might look at other marine aquaria that demonstrate documented learning and complex behaviors (perhaps mantis shrimp).

Just another quick question, I'm thinking of building a U shaped tank to house two individuals. Imagine a large U, with the two vertical sections as housing, and the horizontal section as an experimental chamber we can encourage the animals into for trials to avoid any complicated movement. There will be *strong* divisions between all three sections to prevent escape/intrusion into the living quarters and certain chaos generated between two octopods. As far as tank water flow goes, I realize this may be problematic. Would people suggest we carry out the U construction, or just create a large square shaped tank and include tank dividers that allow water passage to artificially generate the U shape? Just don't want to create or encourage dead spots, and I think moving water in the U might be challenging. Perhaps fellow researchers have a better understanding/past experience with tank schematics. I'll post what I've drawn up if people are interested/need help envisioning the U proposal.

Thanks in advance!
-O
 
I think you'll have dead spots in the u. we have a tank (built in the 1930's) which has very sharp triangular ends (why....I don't know) but the water just won't circulate in it. So we have to drain (nearly) the tank every week (not fun in a 3000L tank!) to get fresh water in there.

J
 
What about a square, divided into thirds using opaque barriers, with the two outside thirds as living quarters and the middle as your trial space? Then you could create a flow-through or recirc system with the water easily moving throughout the setup by positioning two powerheads in the trial section (assuming your movable doors from each living space were permeable - some kind of grating (not too fine of course) would be ideal), where the octos can't normally get to them to get into trouble. See attached rough schematic, with boxes for powerheads and arrows indicating flow. You could remove the powerheads during use of the middle section. You would only have to worry about positioning the powerheads out of reach through the grate...
 

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Tintenfisch,
That's exactly what I was condering for the square sectioned off tank...Does anybody have any experience with chemotaxis and different behaviors founded on octopod chemical detection of another individual? I'm only concerned the animals might behave differently if they pick up on another individual who may be a threat to their territory. I bet if I thought out a few well placed overflow boxes and utilized this powerhead system we could keep a decent amount of water circulating....

Another quick idea reflection...I'm thinking this box should be about the size of three ~35-50 gallon tanks placed side by side...will adding more than one octopus to the overall tank cause me too much headache to bother?

Thanks!!
 
The one problem I see with this tank setup will be observation. You won't be able to see very well from the top, and looking from the sides is going to be diffictult since your trials area is in the middle of the tank. The following might be better for observation, and still within the same shape. I'll have to think about adding another.
 
Pipsuek (et al.),

Does it make any huge difference that there would only be an inflow and an outflow in each living quarters section of the tank...in other words is it alright with cephs to only have half of the "system." I suppose I could make the walls permeable but opaque so the subjects couldn't see through and notice each other too much...

Thanks again!
 
Your already talking about a large volume of water, to which your going to add a sump? I would think that the size of your pumps is going to be pretty important. I really don't have any experience with that, I just offered my suggestion on the layout because I am constantly concerned with spatial problems.
 
Thanks again for everyone's help, we went and met with a LFS owner yesterday and I think we've hammered down the tank design with movable chambers and the like. Right now we're in the gear-listing section of the study, and I'm having trouble finding information and understanding exactly the gph needs of a protein skimmer. We've going to run two 125-150gallon tanks on a single larger sump, but all of our calculations using "Rule of Thumb" conversions result in our using a HUGE protein skimmer with massive output. Is there a way around spending $650 for a protein skimmer attached to a pump capable of outputting 1000+gph? Does location of the skimmer make any difference in the needs of the pump? I know we need to turn the water over many times per hour through the sump/filter, but is this also true of the skimmer? On a side note, does anybody have reccomendations for a larger setup that works well for skimming purposes?

Thanks in advance, I've already gleaned over the sticky thread many times, just looking for experienced advise in particular about larger scale operations!
-Outi
 
I have NOT tried it but I have seen several posts where people run multiple skimmers and am throwing the idea out for others to comment on the advisability.
 
Tank Schema

Here's a picture of what we've worked out....Disregard the canister filter, I think we have enough via the micropads (Correct me if I'm wrong!)

Again, everyone here has been as helpful a resource as I've come across!
-O
 

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Don't take out the canister filter. It will be critical if you run into an inking dilemma. The design looks superb though, it will really be something else.

Greg
 

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