Hindenburg- O. Mercatoris

[DWhatley]

Interesting find. They will need water movement to even have a chance but if she was joubini, there is no opportunity to raise them.

 

[Omega]

well if it helps any, the eggs look like grains of rice..and seem kind of clear. at least i think theyre eggs 0-O

 

[DWhatley]

"grains of rice" is a typical description of a small egg species eggs but I would not have used that comparison for what I saw in Maya's tank (her's were not fertile). Oddly, I have only seen one cluster of eggs (Maya's) even though I have had 6 (off the top of my head) known females to brood. The two groups of hatchinging were always shielded by the female and I did not know for sure there were eggs until they hatched.

Best guess for reading (ie not experience) is to keep them in gentle motion and look for eyes after about 2 weeks. If they are gone in that period then the chances are they were not fertile and rotted.

 

[Omega]

this might sound dumb but..

most of my knowlegde about octos came from reading about our friendly poisonous australian ones =] before i joined the site. I remember reading that they carry their eggs with them as opposed to attaching them to a den wall. Could Hindenburg have been doing that from the time she was caught given to tom and sold to me? I located a second bunch of eggs today in a different spot(just a small pile in the sand oddly) and you can already see dark things in them, and if she had just laid them their development couldnt have been that far along I wouldnt think?

 

[DWhatley]

There are more than one species that carry eggs around after they have been exposed (I don't know about internal incubation, if it even exists) but I don't believe any of the Caribbeans do this. Hindenburg's mantle was extremely stretched so I think she was ready to lay (20/20 hind site because I thought she may have already laid the eggs) when you got her. Joubini is a small egg species and we have seen hatch rates in as little as 10 days so seeing the eyespots is still in line with that thought. The larger egg species seem to take much longer than small egg species (with the exception of the small egg GPO). I think Conanny (briareus) tended the eggs as long as 10 weeks after they were spotted and I saw about the same time with the large egg mercatoris. Water temperature plays a large part in hatch time as well.

 

[hobogato]

d, what would the small egg species babies eat just after hatching?

 

[DWhatley]

Unfortunately, survival of the small egg species in a home aquarium has not been achieved (and only rarely with vulgaris in a public/academic aquarium). I still have my counter set up to attempt a few experiments if I ever get small egg hatchlings (ideas garnered from completely different pelagic animals and not even close to setups that were successful) but so far my female candidates did not produce viable eggs. The best success we have had was Sedna with 11 days and one other with 14, usually they die within 2.

 

[Omega]

eggs were apparently infertile..no little octos. they're starting to break down.

 

[Omega]

there are still about two or three eggs..that havent decomposed question though..what would a baby octopus look like during the first week?

there are probably at least 50 small qhite critters running around my glass...but they dont look anything like octos too me. no apparent legs..im thinking one of the new corals I bought and added to the tank might have had a parasite of some kind

there quite a bit smaller than the eggs were..long as a small grain of rice maybe but little depth to them

 

[DWhatley]

I am not sure what the small egg species look like when they hatch. Animals with pelagic young can often look different from the adults where the benthics are usually replicas. Sulley's briareus were very well defined. My merc babies were smaller and looked just like white hungry dog ticks on the glass.

If the babies were that small, they would not be on the glass but would be swimming in the water column. What you are likely seeing are little copepods of some sort (very possibly from your corals). Do they hop like fleas?

 

[Omega]

If the babies were that small, they would not be on the glass but would be swimming in the water column. What you are likely seeing are little copepods of some sort (very possibly from your corals). Do they hop like fleas?

they dont hop..squirm maybe? their movement reminds me of jellyfish but its along the glass and not freely swimming. there are tons of them in the tank...hundreds so i think its safe to say they are not octos. but something quickly spawning from one of the new corals

 

[DWhatley]

Do you see a stringy strand connecting them. I am thinking possibly a type of hydroid (a problem for dwarf seahorses and are often present when brine shrimp are put into a tank - see this reference on seahorse.org. There are a large variety and not all have the connecting webbing (the one in the photo is not one of the web connected colonies).

 

[Omega]

not at all like those..im not sure what they are but there are far too many to be octos. I did find two more eggs from Hindenburg that have amazingly not died off yet where as all the others have been gone for several days... I got an apartment for when i change universities and they wrote an exception in for me to have my 110g tank =]...new octo journal coming in july after i move hopefully..

 

[DWhatley]

Wow - very cool on the exception!