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Found octo w/ eggs in sea of cortez

agnoght

Hatchling
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Mar 27, 2006
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Hello I am completely new to this site and never had an octopus until my wife found one in a shell loaded with eggs on the inside of the shell. We found the octopus in Bahia de Kino, Mexico. As far as we can tell Momma and babies are alive and growing. Does anyone know what species live in the Sea of Cortez? I only know that there are 9 different species that live there. I need to identify mine. The head is about 6 inches long and 3 inches wide. I don't see any eye spots at least not yet. I can not keep the babies so I need to sell them if they hatch. How do you keep them from getting sucked into a powerhead? I have been keeping reef tanks and had a tank ready for an anemone (which I still don't have) and only two clownfish which are now safety in my hospital tank, the rest I consider octopus food. Please don't beat me up to bad for not understanding marine tanks. What is an octopus egg jestation period typically?
 
eh
Your success will hing on egg size i think
Large eggs mean Mini Octos eating Mini Octo food (do able but hard)
Small eggs mean Plankton octos and are next to impossible to do .
you keep them from sucked into a power head by removing the power head
we use mesh to keep big octos out but they wont make a mesh small enough to stop a baby octo.
Good luck and let us know the out come
 
sorry no pics

I would love to send pics but I can't. Mom likes hiding in her clam shell/nest. If I took a pic all you would see is a clam. That's how we were able to catch her in the first place. Maybe she'll come out to eat some peppermint shrimp one night or a damsel. I think for now she is aclimating. Do you have any suggestions about what to feed her. I am assuming she is a carnivore but in case she is an omnivore I have native plants and macro algae as well. I dropped in a small piece of frozen krill as an option while I was waiting to pick up the live shrimp.

As for the egg size they are about 1/4-3/8 of an inch in length white and transparent. I am assuming those are the little kind of eggs. You can see the babies inside.
 
While many octopus will use shells as dens, what you have sounds like O. digueti, a species we've doing quite a lot of work with, it even has it's own thread here:
http://www.tonmo.com/community/index.php?threads/5493/

Be sure to read the articles by Nancy in the "ceph care" section of this site, it will probably answer a lot of your questions.
We have raised many of the juveniles, but have never made it past
F1 in rearing...keep us posted as to how yours do.

greg
 
Hi!

I think its great that you have developed such an interest in this octopus. Cephalopods are fascinating creatures, and the more you know the more you want to know. However, I don't think it is in the best interest of mom or babes for you to continue caring for them. If possible, I think it would be a really good idea for you to return the shell back to the ocean. Granted, I'm sure there would be stress and acclimation problems with returning the creatures, but I'm sure that one of the more experienced ceph owners here could advice you on that issue. I think you should do a little more research into ceph care and husbandry before attempting to care for an octopus again. I don't want to discourage future octopus attempts, I just want to make sure that when you do try to care for these amazing creatures that it is as successful as possible. Just my thoughts.

Cheers!
 
Well, it sounds like the octopus was gathered on a vacation, and since they are only found in that one little stretch of ocean, I doubt they would do well anywhere else. Most of the digueti's we have found guarding egg clusters lived for about two months, and the young were raised to subadult status prior to suddenly kicking off.
This year, we are going to try a more broad approach, and see if it will work better.

To give you an idea of how many of these are on a beach: In 2004, during the summer, we found over 300 in the space of one hour...the gulls were having a hayday ! There were a lot of people there collecting them for food, and quite a few aquarists too...I told them all about Tonmo, but who knows how far the interest went. Did get some of them to leave the octos behind, after telling them that they wouldn't survive in a standard fish tank. You'd think that after all that, one of the little buggers wouldn't have bitten me !
 
An update

Some of the eggs hatched, and now I have atleast 2 babies swimming arround my tank. I read that nobody is really having any luck raising the babies of this species past 2 monthes. Why? I don't know a lot about the F1 stage what is that? Any ideas about feeding? Right now I am using peppermint shrimp babies. I have 3 breeding peppermints to supply thier babies as food. I learned this trick from a seahorse website. The shrimp reproduce rapidly. I think I will add some skunk cleaners for the same purpose, plus pick up a different hawain shrimp species and some copepods for a varied diet. Has anybody raised this type of ceph to an adult? I will try and photograph one of these suckers but it's not that easy they are little and like to hide. I still won't try to photograph mom. I am waiting for a post mortem pics. I'll let Mom spend her last days in peace. I have some time off maybe I will get a good baby pic.
 
Mysid shrimp, then copepods and amphipods are good starter food. The baby shrimp you have would probably work if they're small. It is possible to raise baby octos and some people have done it, but there is usually a high mortality rate.

Nancy
 
Yep, this year we are hoping to use massive amounts of fresh live rock, with the attached little animals, as rearing tanks.
 

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