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HELP

kjlittle0

Cuttlefish
Registered
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
Messages
17
my octo has been doing great for the past few days but today when i turned the light on he was in the front corner of the tank and never moved, when i got home from work tonight he was still there with kind of a filmy white substance coming from his arms, i offered him some food but hes very lethargic.... my ammonia and nitrates are at zero and ph is 8.2..... any suggestions
 
Kevin,
From the pics posted in your other thread it looks like Stanley is missing some arm tips? Is it possible the cardinals got a hold of him when he was exploring slots in the lid of his cricket cage? Or possibly autophagy?

Of course it may just be that Stanley is already old. The lethargy, dark eyes, and light skin color remind me of my mercs as they became senescent and eventually died.

Sorry. Wish I had something more positive to offer.
 
im gunna guess he was already old because everything else in the tank is fine and hes not taking any food, i went ahead and did a 10% water change just in case but i already oredered a second one earlier today because i wanted to try out 2 and hopefully get a spawn. hes had a little movement since the water change but nothing to be excited about.
 
A water change is always prudent any time you see unusual behavior and especially in a small, unaged tank. The behavior is suggestive of sesenence however, I don't understand the filmy white substance. Are you sure it is from the arms? They can excrete something similar from their funnel (not quite sure if it is odd ink or waste but I have seen it) but you should not see excretions from anywhere else.

If he/she stays out during the day and will rest or crawl on your hand and sit, I am afraid he/she has less than a week to live (view Wiley's and Trapper's (starting at #34)posts to compare behavior. Seeing no signs of enlarged suckers, if we are seeing sesenence, she may be post hatching.

On a happier note, Dino has checked in to say that his two are doing well.
 
i tried picking him up but he did not move at all. his color went from white to red though and red was kind of pulsating thourhgout his arms.... when i let him down he kind of just rolled off my hand.... he seems much much smaller than the ones from the photos within the threads. the white film reminds me an ammonia burn but the ammonia is at zero.

i plan on another one coming in within a few days, should i leave him in there if he is just going to die anyways? ive never gotten attatched to any of my fish before but this little fellows really bugging me....
 

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I am sorry, but this little one is not likely to be alive come morning (and may be dead at the time of the photo, the chromataphores will function somewhat after death). If you see no breathing, she is gone. If you are not sure and want to euthanize or at least be sure, the best recommendations I have read are to place her in a cup of salt water and put it in the freezer but I suspect she is gone. I have done this only once and it was more my heart that was not sure and not signs from the octopus.

Unfortunately, size is not a good indicator for octopuses. Even octos from the same brood will grow differently (and it appears the same may be of cuttles as well), additionally, if she is post brood, she will have been living off her own body during the brood cycle.

This is the hardest part of keeping a ceph. It seems so unfair that they are so short lived and keepers become so easily attached.

As far as leaving her in the tank, your option. I have removed mine to small aerated containers to avoid having them eaten by my clean-up crew until they were fully dead. In a larger well cycled tank, there is little biologic impact from a small ceph (AM has seen negative results from a larger one though) but a small tank will likely spike if you leave her in there too long after death.
 
The mercs have been a bit unpredictable. It seems we have a run of senescing adults and then a run of very successful attempts. Some are very shy and are never seen, some learn to interact and look for their keepers at feeding time. I have had all of the above :hmm: and can't suggest why there is so much of a difference.
 
hey i was looking at your profile and it sas seahorses are one of your interests, i am going to attempt to breed them here in the new future, ive owned them successfully but only females are there any other fish/inverts you take interest in
 
also if you would like some non-photo corals to go with your seahorses i can hook you up with alot of reed chilis and some different varieties of gorgonians which i will be fragging soon...
 
I kept seahorses for several years with varying degrees of success and actually found TONMO looking for shore shrimp to feed them (at one time TONMO had an aliance with a producer). I have not had horses for over a year now (they breed easily but raising the young is another story) and have converted most of my seahorse tanks to house octopuses (which still could house horses of course). I miss the horses from time to time but the amount of work for the satisfaction has been much higher with the octos and we can go away for a weekend without worrying. I actually have two available tanks at the moment (in addition to a merc tank that is waiting for a pair of GHolland's babies :wink:) and am waiting for something to push me into filling them.
 

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