Kooah - O.briareus

sulley;154844 said:
how long has it been d

It has been 12 days since I first saw the eggs but she could have laid them as much as a week earlier. The weather has been cool (up until this weekend) and the heat is off so they may be slower to develop. At least they are still there and have not rotted.

Kooah is still eating almost nightly and sometime this weekend she came out and raided the additional rubble pile I put out for her (it is on the other side of the tubes from her brooding den but within reach without actually going to the other side). She put one of the new piece partially in front of my viewing opening but has not fully blocked my view again. I still only see the one spot on the one egg if I watch for awhile. I need to look up where the eyes begin to appear (octopuses flip twice during incubation if I recall correctly and I am not sure if the eyes should be at the point or at the fat part of the teardrop in the beginning).
 
I see SPOTS

:band:
 

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Brooding Female Briareus Continues To Eat Well

One think I keep forgetting to mention, Kooah continues to take one thawed shrimp two in every three days. She does not come out but does not need coaxing. Neal says it is technique (he feeds the tanks daily).

I continue to wonder what happens internally when either sex stops eating and think it has something to do with pressure on the digestive system or atrophy of the buccal muscle or some other part of the body that wears out (I am a lay person so don't laugh at my simplicity). Several days ago, my first thought was suggested anecdotally with the shape of Kooah's waste. I wish the photo was sharper but I was fortunate to see and photographed it quickly because it disappeared before I could review the photos and try for a better picture and the only other waste I have seen was the bright red of cyclop-eeze (this is clearly shrimp and does not look well digested). Notice the chuncks, in a human one might think of constipation (at first I thought it was a string eggs).

The other unanswered question that bothers me is how do fasting octopuses hydrate. Most marine animals get their water from their food.
 

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Funny you should mention octopus waste. Tonight was the first time I actually saw some. Diablo pooped, at first I thought it inked but quickly understood it was not. It was a lot, dark colored, looked like anemone poop which I see a lot of. Must have been that blue crab the other night LOL.

Well now that you called me out...I am so sorry I didn't mention the eggs, unintentional thoughtlessness. Great news, I am so happy about the life you discovered inside the eggs. This is going to be exciting.
 
Oh, D, I'm so happy for you! I know it's all but impossible to raise the babies but if anyone can do it, it's you! None of my brooding girls ever kept eggs where I could actually see them, so I'm loving the pics! BTW, Elise was reading posts over my shoulder the other day and said, "Hey, D changed her avatar!" You're a bit of a celeb at our house...
 
snowmaker,
There are two basic types of octopus hatchlings. The small egg species produce large quantities of rice sized eggs that are pelagic for weeks or months after hatching and need food that is suspended in the water column. These hatchlings have not been successful in home aquariums and only on rare occassions in public facilities. The large egg species eggs hatch young that are benthic and seek the substrate within minutes to hours of hatching. It is possible but not easy to raise some of them at home. In recent years there have been two of us that have successfully raised two generations of the mercatoris (GHolland and me) and one generation of bimac (ZyanSilver) but we have no other recorded successes. Kooah is a large egg species animal but attempts to raise the briareus young have been dismal failures without providing any feedback.

Additionally, this species is known to be cannibalistic and one of the longer successes (Conanny) with the young showed attacks starting at 1 week after hatching.
 
I sent James a PM a bit ago and just received a response today. I am hoping for some feeding suggestion for the first month. Conanny's young had tons and tons of wild food but still did not make it (I am thinking it was too small). The last paper I read by Ceph (from his undergrad work, oops it is the one you referenced) did not have success much past the hatching but I am hoping there is a later, more successful paper. I am going to let Kooah do all the prenatal care and not make any attempt at separating the eggs or hatching in multiple batches (I think he later decided this was a wiser choice).

Speaking of Ceph, his new book is now shipping:
The following is packed and ready to leave our warehouse:
Product Description Quantity Ship Date
Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate 1 05-06-2010
 
Egg Update - color

At the end of the brooding, I will try to put the four best pictures that show egg development in one post but for now, I will just add a few :roll: as I take them.

Today Kooah was not tending the eggs when I looked in and I was worried. The eggs still had little eye spots and did not look dead. We went off to eat with my Mother (Mother's Day) and when we returned, she was still not grooming the eggs but when I got the camera out (no flash but it does shine a green focus point light) she moved over to the eggs and started grooming again.

I could not detect changes visually but by taking a bunch of shots, I could see that the babies can now produce a little color. You will have to enlarge the thumbs to see but the first shot shows a dark spot on the front egg (that may be algae on the glass :oops:) . The second shows actual peach color.
 

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