[Octopus]: Elephant’s

ACC4

Blue Ring
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Joined
Sep 30, 2021
Messages
43
Location
Virginia
So my tank is extremely stable! I had it cycle the first 3 months before adding cephs. I have an almost 2in deep sand bed of the carribesea sand/small rocks, I have probably more weight in pounds of live rock and coral skeletons donated from a friend’s tank. I change my filter socks every other day, add a bit of water each day, do a 10% water change every other week. But so much of my water sprinkles out of the sump that I lose salt water so I pretty much refill the tank with half and half or RODI & RODI Saltwater…
My salinity somehow adjusts really fast-everything, I left the tank for four days and didn’t do a thing, came back in and checked the stats and it was still stable! It took a good 6 months to get this way though! I think the frags and carribesea Sand so deep and the amount of live rock that helps keep it stable is my best guess? But anyway into journal about the actual ceph!! Elephant has always been more wary of humans (and blame his as all the people that roughly handled him and captured by people. Traumatic for him!
 

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:love: im honored! I've just read things on this site for about a year now, maybe 18 months.. and i've learned so much from everyone.. So im enjoying actually being able to inform someone now! So I didn't take marine biology or anything, i just happen to love scuba diving(I'm a new DiveMaster) and wanted to bring some of that home to be swept away in, and calmed by.. So corals are living, growing beings, called polyps, that are teeny creatures individually but form large corals as they grow because they collect calcium from the water and build skeletons out of it and use it to keep them steadier and not swept away. So a "Brain Coral" looks like you are peering into a brain, there are some that are hundreds of years old that I've seen. Anyway, humans have learned to cut corals and if cut a certain way, and still in a proper environment they can continue growing, sometimes even faster that if they'd not been cut.. they grow extremely slowly so anything that helps speed them up is helpful to the planet. Anyway, people take these cuts of coral and sell them to aquarium owners, who grow them, however, they can be difficult to care for and when they die they leave their skeleton behind..(honestly just feels like regular rock to me) and most important part: they can then collect up "healthy bacteria" on them that helpful in keeping the tank balanced! So here are some of my coral skeletons with bacteria that has collected and turned colorful, the one that is pale, it is what one type of dead coral skeleton looks like before it has been a nurturing home for bacteria.. So to my knowledge they work pretty much like dry to live rock. live rock is supposed to already have the bacteria, while dry rock hasnt, it has instead died been taken-out of the aquarium and subsequently dried up .. then frags.. i could totally could be wrong about this, but it's the broken up pieces of live rock or coral skeletons that don't look pretty, but they're still useful to harbor bacteria so they are placed in the sump where they are out of sight but still a natural way of denitrifying the aquarium :smile: but im still a newbie so anyone please correct me if I'm wrong..!
 

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Beautifull, please tell more about the coral skeletons and I am particularly interested in the frags, what are they?
so they are what is left behind-dead corals, but for real, don't skimp on the substrate and live rock, and frags (short for fragments is my guess) also help so basically everything is useful to achieving a naturally stable aquarium. I don't have a refugium yet, i'd like one. So i used 1.5in deep in the living carribeasea tiny rock sand, so they come with bacteria, then lots of live rock collecting bacteria that breaks down toxins in the aquarium, or at least one step of breaking down toxins, nitrogen, to nitrite to nitrate, different parts work together in the aquarium, it is an ecosystem you are building. I also have some plants in my sump so other toxins are removed, everything plays a part. It's a good goal because the opposition is it isn't healthy to mainly be using heavy sudden doses of chemicals all the time to keep your aquarium within it's parameters.
 
So my tank is extremely stable! I had it cycle the first 3 months before adding cephs. I have an almost 2in deep sand bed of the carribesea sand/small rocks, I have probably more weight in pounds of live rock and coral skeletons donated from a friend’s tank. I change my filter socks every other day, add a bit of water each day, do a 10% water change every other week. But so much of my water sprinkles out of the sump that I lose salt water so I pretty much refill the tank with half and half or RODI & RODI Saltwater…
My salinity somehow adjusts really fast-everything, I left the tank for four days and didn’t do a thing, came back in and checked the stats and it was still stable! It took a good 6 months to get this way though! I think the frags and carribesea Sand so deep and the amount of live rock that helps keep it stable is my best guess? But anyway into journal about the actual ceph!! Elephant has always been more wary of humans (and blame his as all the people that roughly handled him and captured by people. Traumatic for him!
So, Elephant the octopus has spent months with me, he doesn't like coming out unless it's very dark and quiet. so 2am-5am is when he's most active. His quirks are using his arms to push away a finger that is too close to his cave, he just pushes the finger away :tearsofjoy: the exception being when he was finally curious about what I might taste like and hauled my finger inside his cave and gave me a bite! he likes to pause and change color and wait to see if you'll walk away (like a game of you can't see me!!) and if you don't i swear it seems like he "sulks" away if you keep watching.
 
Journal update— added 3 fiddler crabs and another emerald crab to the tank for Ele to eat. + a soft coral, forget the name, but it looks slightly similar to feather dusters but heftier..
He is coming out less frequently for sure. Though I left for just a few hours and already have perfectly cleaned out crab 🦀 shell so I’ll have to go through the cameras for that shot, should be fun because the light was on! So I have a happy octopus tucked away in his den ☺️Everything else is the same except I’ve turned the heater on now, the lights are consistent bc they’re on a set schedule slowly brightening and darkening every day/night over the course of several hours to be more realistic.
Tank specs are now:
Temp: 72.3
Salinity 1.025 / 35
Nitrates 2-5
 
Hello and welcome to Elephant! Those guys are nocturnal, so the behaviors you describe are completely normal. Adjusting your lights as you have is definitely a good thing- a regular, short photoperiod will help you establish a routine.

Also know that you’re totally welcome to share your dive photos with us!
 
Hello and welcome to Elephant! Those guys are nocturnal, so the behaviors you describe are completely normal. Adjusting your lights as you have is definitely a good thing- a regular, short photoperiod will help you establish a routine.

Also know that you’re totally welcome to share your dive photos with us!
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Night dive-oh wait no, I think this was actually a night snorkel..Half Moon Bay, Roatan, Honduras. Found a Caribbean reef squid that was at least football sized-she came up to me and touched my mask and hovered by me and was totally curious about me. I think I won her over because my dive torch was lit up and blinding some of the fish the squid was after, giving her a good meal. Then I just floated as still as possible forever and she’d get closer and closer. It was simply amazing. She was most interested in my fins and mask 🤿 it was wonderful. Came across a number of Caribbean Reef Octopuses, this one tolerated me watching him eat for 20 minutes before he slipped away into the crevices leaving behind a pretty intact but bare, skeleton!
I don’t know if it works to upload videos to this site while I’m on the mobile version of the page..?
 

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Wow, so great! Nice job interacting and making it work - stealth observation mode. What an experience, congrats!

Mobile upload of vids should work, yes! But LMK if you have issues.
 
Hello and welcome to Elephant! Those guys are nocturnal, so the behaviors you describe are completely normal. Adjusting your lights as you have is definitely a good thing- a regular, short photoperiod will help you establish a routine.

Also know that you’re totally welcome to share your dive photos with us!
Wow, so great! Nice job interacting and making it work - stealth observation mode. What an experience, congrats!

Mobile upload of vids should work, yes! But LMK if you have issues.
Hahaha, yes, stealth mode indeed! It makes so much sense when you take the time to think of what would spark a cephalopod’s curiosity! So 1) don’t scare it off by being too eager 2) think about what it wouldn’t usually see in another creature- because basically everything wants to eat them -if the cephalopod knows you’ve seen it yet aren’t making any advances to catch or eat it that will be strange and curious for them to see and if you just watch it being as still as you can hovering nearby- in my experience that makes them curious about you and they approach! Unfortunately it doesn’t usually get much on camera-because you can’t move lol. But the experiences are magical!
Okay, here goes video attempts!
 

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