[Octopus]: Iris - O. Briareus

Quick update. The baby has been quite a bit more active in the past few days, happily hunting around the tank in the early evening, and also eating pieces of frozen silverside.
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:thumbsup: Thanks for the update. Oddly, I was thinking of PMing you today to ask. I have done major water changes on M&M's tank and the remaining animals (polyps, urchins and two week new "test" shrimp) all seem to be doing fine but I see an oily haze in the sump so I have ordered a powered surface skimmer. The oil slick may not be from the fan incident and I don't see it on the tank (sump is open topped, tank is not) but since I can't test for anything (normal parms were never fouled ) I want to be sure I have eliminated whatever it was the fan added (which may have only been electricity). Looking at the tank still makes me want to cry.
 
Update on the octo:
Still no name, but he's coming out roughly every other evening at 8 or 9 pm, sometimes eating and sometimes just hanging around and being social. I'd like to give him live food, but I'm not sure what will be the right size -- he's still too small to take down a fiddler crab. Maybe I'll try another shipment of mysids and amphipods. I want to keep him hunting just for the stimulation.

Update on the photos:
Thanks to DWhatley for suggesting that I enter some of the octobaby photos into a contest. I entered a few of the ones from this thread into the Smithsonian Magazine annual photo contest, which gets judged at the end of the calendar year. If any of them miraculously make it into the final round (where people get to vote online), I'll certainly let this gang know. In the meantime, they selected one of them (I'm not sure which one) to be the "photo of the day" for next Saturday, August 2. Woohoo! www.smithsonianmag.com
 
He is big enough for shore shrimp and it will help him grow. You will have to kill them just before you offer (still on a stick though you can try fingers) as he probably can't catch them yet. There is only a small window where they can catch them live. If you can find live blue crab and scrounge the claws that are already detached but still very fresh, you can freeze them and then use a nut cracker to open and extract a hunk of meat (after thawing). Not live food but gives better growing food than mysis or pods. Shiitake still makes me crack off about half the shell for either a claw or an arm (unusual at her size).

So glad you entered some of the photos! Bringing more attention, even if they don't place high, to cephs is a good thing :biggrin2:. The fact that they have named one for the weekly sample is encouraging since some of the really excellent photos in the past have been passed over for "pretty" critters (not that our group does not think octos are beautiful but the rest of the world has rarely seen them and still like colorful fish over the really interesting critters in the ocean, I think this is changing).
 
This was a great read and i am really happy for you and your little octo. You have given us all a lot of great new info and your photo skills are second to none. After reading this I now wonder if at the point of the babys eating each other if we would remove them at that time if we would have more survivors if we could find enough food. You called it perfect, you said you would end up with just one and you did. I will have to go back and look at the time line to see when the cannibalism went into full swing but I would think if we could remove them at this time and have enough food that it would work. I Might have missed it but who ended up with the other babys and did they make it so far? Thank you once again fantastic job
 
I was lucky enough to try to raise one. Sadly it died due to an odd set of circumstances with the tank. I swapped the existing skimmer with a larger unit (purchased for another tank but had a size issue) and disrupted the cooling fan I have always kept over the sump. Sometime after the swap the fan fell into the sump and I lost the octo along with a couple of starfish and a serpent star. The polyps recovered and the urchins appeared unaffected. I think the oil or other lubricating fluid in the motor caused the deaths but can't be sure. I have done major water changes, added a surface skimmer and successfully tried adding a few shrimp but have not put more sensitive animals into the aquarium yet. It is still painful to look at the tank.
 
D I read your posts about M&M after I wrote this yesterday. Sorry to hear that. Do we know if the other 2 are still alive? I know who ever has them is not posting about them. Going back over the timeline and the fact that both you and the other person who received babies that seemed to ship well. I would want to separate as many as possible at the 2 week mark.ether shipping them out or to different holding systems. This might not work but I would think it would be worth a try since we know that they will kill each other. Tmoct Thank you again for posting everything. This is all such great info.
 
Final installment of the Iris and Iris-babies saga:

The lone survivor has completely disappeared. He/she was very social, active, and seemingly healthy. Eating well almost every night, a combination of frozen silversides, frozen shrimp, and live hermit crabs. No sighting for about a month now.

It's really very odd -- I checked all of the plumbing, disassembled the piping inside the overflow, etc., to no avail. I haven't gone through all the rockwork in the aquarium. Before the disappearance he/she would come out every afternoon and evening.

The only thing I can think of is that this baby was alive for something like six months, but was nowhere near half the size of Iris, the mother. Perhaps she wasn't as healthy as she appeared.

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So sad to hear this and think about M&M. Still, you and I are the only TONMO members (so far) to have had O. briareus hatchling survive more than a month and I would count this little one as a success.

From watching the failures and minor successes with the small egg species, I believe first foods likely have a major impact on continued survival. I keep playing with hatchling food ideas while I don't have hatchlings and am currently hosting two blue crabs (one male and one female) in separate sumps that I hope will eventually live together and spawn. The male is still too small to introduce to the female but maybe after the next molt (he has molted twice now) I will see if she will accept him. My thought is to try to net and freeze any successful zoea (unless timing was exactly right to feed live).

I also started a small tank for some freshwater crayfish. This species is all female and self fertilizes. If I can keep a culture going, I should have varying sizes over time. So far I have only found one tiny offspring but at least that means the environment may be acceptable. They are in a very small 2 gallon tank right now and I may need to move them to a 10 gallon to be successful. I would prefer something similar in size, ease of keeping with good captive survival that is a saltwater critter but have not come across an idea yet.
 

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