I'd please don't trust lfs

Joined
Apr 21, 2012
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55
Don't trust LSF to know species of octopus
 

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She is very active tonight been out for like the past hour. Hundreds of babies swimming about as momma mobs around the tank.





















 

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The overactive activity you are seeing is common with senescence (for both male and female). Her color is also indicative of this stage. She may hang on for as long a two weeks or two days, the later being the most common but I have seen both. She is unlikely to eat but you can offer. If you have Cyclop-eze (frozen not dried) she may take that if you gently squirt a pipette toward her mouth but I have only been able to KNOW this was taken by Trapper (my first animal). I have video of her eating it and she survive far longer than any other female. She also had the fewest number of hatchlings.

Sadly, I have several end of life recordings that show senescent animals seem to appreciate the softness of our hands (I am guessing on the softness part). The only times I have been nipped (no skin breaks - well maybe a pinprick) have been handling my dying animals, usually with the intent of putting them in a breeder net to avoid the clean up crew starting too early. All were animals I had handled many times and would come to my hand for petting. The nips have come when I try to remove them from my hand, now while they were cradled. Once settled in a net away from sharp objects and hungry crew, they would accept petting without holding on.
 
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You are a very smart individual. I wish I can gain as much experience and knowledge of these animals as you have. When I woke up today she, was dead on the bottom (cuc) didn't touch her. We knew this was coming soon. It's sad but definitely a new learning experience as we still have hundreds of babies swimming about the tank. I have looked into that reef soup on eBay and thinking of getting some , or trying to come up with a mixture of our own that works. The babies do like cyclopeze but we need to pick up some more, we only had two cubes left.


I have started a process for preserving her body in hopes we can learn a bit more about her species.
 
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Thanks for the ego boost, now if I could just learn to type and proof read! :roll: I have tried to put stickies with reading material at the top of many of the forums to serve as out side reference reading. So if you are in a mood to wade through some of the experimental write-ups, look there for starters. Should you come across new material please add to the stickies, send me a link or post in an appropriate forum (I will see it and add).

We have a preservation thread if you need it. One of the areas my fellow staff members have poked me about is learning to do it more esthetically :biggrin2: but I usually preserve the ones that are in good shape to pass on for requests. If you will look at the end of most of my journals, you will see photos of the young people who have them for school and/or for personal observation.
 
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Haven't seen any of the babies yet tonight hoping we didn't lose them along with the mother. Guess its that scary waiting moment again??

On a lighter note the small male we have, made an appearance tonight. Waiving tentacles about at the face of his cave . We will be moving him to his larger home soon.
 
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First lesson in octo speak :biggrin2:. Octopuses have 8 ARMS, squid and cuttlefish have 8 ARMS and 2 tentacles. Often the distinction is not made in most animals (and you will see arms and tentacles used interchangeably when talking about cephalopods) but because the tentacles look and function differently we attempt a distinction in the cephs.

Sadly, the little guys don't last long. The large egg species are not a cake walk and don't succeed in large numbers. Raising only a couple in the whole brood is considered a success for the home aquarist (We are seeing success in Mexico with O. Maya as a food industry. If I understand their nursery though it is an ocean tank or ocean fed). Of the successes we have from home hobbyist, only O. mercatoris has seen more than one hobbyist able to raise roughly 5 through natural senescence and a third (first tank bred) generation. We have seen success with O. bimaculoides and O. briareus but only with one member each. The bimacs, however had a survival of over 50 animals, the O. briareus only 2 (though I think 5 would have survived had the three that died after the major die off had a better environment). Roy has had a couple of additional species survive in the labs at Berkeley but I don't know all the species or numbers (I think I coaxed species from him awhile back but I can't find the post).
 
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Try putting a red flashlight to one spot in the tank and leaving it on for, say, 15 minutes. If you do see some drawn to the light, add a little Cyclop-eeze if you still have a little. If you don't have red find a red something (t-shirt, plastic coffee can) and put it over a white one (Folgers can may be too opaque though but you get the idea). Sedna noticed that they would come to a flash light at night and I was able to attract shrimp spawn that way the other night.
 
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I have a red led strip on it for like the past three hours, we're fearing we may have lost them all...... I will keep updates if anything shows up, as well as updates about moving the small male to his larger tank.
I was able to find some 99% alcohol and moved the mother to it, her arms twisted up and her skin turned kinda rubbery. Her color stayed pretty well as well.
 
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I did not see a clear gathering of the shrimp spawn under my overhead red light (although they were in the general area and is how I spotted them). They only gathered (and the gathering was very strong with the shrimp) when I focused a beam along the side of the tank. Worth a try but not a guaranteed method.
 
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I am assuming you put her in formalin first since you said she was rubbery. The texture is really quite amazing after formalin as it does not feel like live tissue but like a rubber toy. You may want to change out the alcohol in maybe 2 weeks if you see a yellowing. Don't do it immediately but once all the formalin and any remaining tissue leaches out, the alcohol will stay clear.
 
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This is osiris the smaller male he's been out all the time the past few days













 

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