GPO Health Issue

[Jean]

Maybe you need to find a real nasty one and get him to touch it!!!

 

[skywindsurfer]

lol we have some pretty nasty ones. IMO though I feel that the entire exhibit is inadequate for this animal. But I'm at bottom of the totem pole here and have very little say in things.

 

[neurobadger]

Is the director the same person as the owner?

 

[skywindsurfer]

Yes.

 

[Nancy]

Just because the anemones are found in the same habitat as the GPO, doesn't mean octopuses in the wild live where they have to to crawl over them and get stung every time they leave their den. It's the cramped space and the large number of anemones that creates the problem - the same problem I observed when I visited the aquarium 5 or 6 years ago. From the aquarium's point of view, the anemones are very colorful and enliven the exhibit, but at great cost to the octopus. It's also costing the aquarium, because I and a number of other reefkeepers won't visit as long as this aquarium mistreats their GPO.

 

[skywindsurfer]

I feel the same way, but I cannot seem to convince them to change it or even move it to a larger exhibit, but then they would just get more anemones I'm sure.

 

[neurobadger]

Do you have the agreement of several staff members? Perhaps you could raise this issue as a group. If a large portion of his aquarium staff put their foot down, he may think twice about screwing up staff morale, much less the health of his octopus.

If you can find articles about octopus lesions and skin disease in captivity, especially as a result of cnidocytes, and if we as a forum could perhaps collect some articles on this to help out, perhaps it would swing his decision one way or the other, but I'm not confident that that's going to do much to convince a dude who's predicated his decision on 'BUT IT LOOKS PRETTY'.


Then again, I have a deep and abiding hatred for the sufficiently irrational and that's another story.

 

[skywindsurfer]

No. I'm really the only one who cares this much about our cephs. Everyone else is like oh well what can you do, the director wants it this way so that's how its going to be.

 

[neurobadger]

Do they care enough about their OWN animals to raise concerns with the director if there's a problem with their welfare?

If not, I hate to say it, but your aquarium sucks.

 

[SabrinaR]

One thing you might try to help is raise the salinity of the water. While it wont stop the animal from being stung it will help with the healing factor. Octopuses can regenerate and heal pretty well if they are kept at in the right environment. Just an idea.

Im PMing you.

 

[skywindsurfer]

Well I'm not going to say anymore on that, I think I've said too much and it would be unprofessional and unfair to those accused if I were to say things about them without them being able to speak on their behalf. I did how ever just finish speaking with the vet and he's going to take some swabs and try to do some cultures. I'm going to bring it up with my director sometime today to see if we can get rid of some if not all of the anemones. I know what the answer will be, but I still have to try.

 

[skywindsurfer]

One thing you might try to help is raise the salinity of the water. While it wont stop the animal from being stung it will help with the healing factor. Octopuses can regenerate and heal pretty well if they are kept at in the right environment. Just an idea.

Im PMing you.

I'm trying that as well, but it has been difficult to do for reasons I cannot say to the public, but today I am adding high salinity water doing about 100 gallons at least twice today to up the salinity a little bit. Ideally I want to see it at about 1.024-1.026.

 

[skywindsurfer]

Ok so historically, the water chems are better now then they were in the past few years except the salinity is very low. I'm going to try to get the salinity back up to a resonable amount. My director and supervisor both say that almost all facilities keep anemones with their GPO's. They mentioned Georgia saying that they have a lot of them. Also my directer wants to know what species of anemones are more harmful to the octopus. Again we have painted, northern red, giant green, frilled, and strawberry anemones. Pictures of other GPO exhibits from other facilities would be helpful.

 

[neurobadger]

I seem to remember that there is this balloony-shaped anemone that seems to like to hang out in the tank of the GPO at the National Zoo, but there's only one anemone and the tank is gigantic.

 

[SabrinaR]

I have an acquaintance who works with GPO's here in Houston... Im gonna shoot him an email and ask what they keep with theirs. I will forward any info he gives me.