- Joined
- Jul 23, 2018
- Messages
- 26
Of all the octopus species I have kept, O. hummelincki inks the most (forgive me if this is redundant). It is almost as if they slowly make ink and have to reduce the volume (probably the wrong guess but there is something different about them). For all but one of the hummelinckis I have, the inking occurs in small releases and often for no apparent reason and without disaster. The one instance where this was not the case the animal completely blackend the tank and the water bucket I removed her to while she was discharging the ink. Once she stopped and I put her in another aquarium (fortunately I had an appropriate tank available) there was never another problem. I had to do a complete water change on the 60 she polluted. I have no clue why it happened. There is a similar incidence with a vulgaris but sadly there was not a spare, unpolluted tank available and the animal died (which may or may not have been a result of the inability to rehouse it).
Et inks more than others I have kept but it is almost always clear that he has been taken by surprise. He stopped eating well for two days and a large water change solved the problem as well has starting a hand feeding success, something he has not done since the first week in the tank.
Wow, ink incontenence. I'll have to watch out for that, thanks. I had never considered this as a possibility. I have a 20g reef tank and a 20g coral QT tank that I could move him to if needed, but it's good to be prepared mentally that this might happen at some point.
So out of curiosity how would I go about moving Davy if he decided to empty all the ink he could into the tank and blacken it? Are there any tricks to enticing him to get into a container? I still have the one KP Aquatics sent him in, I suppose I could always try to get him back into that if needed.