My First Octopus

[djkaty]

Oh... that would explain why George isn't eating it then. The ones I have are white when you peel the skin off.

 

[mtlarsen]

Thank you all for the information. I only bought one today so when i go back i'll know exactly which raw shrimp to get. He/she ate most of the piece. There was just a little piece in the aquarium that I removed.

 

[DWhatley]

Sounds like you have the food sizing just about right. He/she probably won't need an increasing amount since it is past the accelerate growth rate of the first few months.

Katy, we have never tried food quite that large with our clowns (different species). We feed small mysis and Cyclop-eeze and have never tried pieces of table shrimp.

 

[djkaty]

D: I cut it into small pieces, like into 4 per shrimp. What is Cyclop-eeze?

 

[DWhatley]

Cyclop-eeze is an engineered tiny shrimp food that was initially (from what I can tell) a product for commercially hatched fish. It has made its way to the hobby market but is a bit of a hassle and expensive because it is a frozen food (there are dried version but I don't use them). I don't know if it is available outside the US (and likely Canada - had to look to see if it was a US or Canadian product but it appears to be a US company).

 

[mtlarsen]

Day 2

Ok so not alot to report today. I fed him/her twice today both times I found pieces left over about 30 minutes after feeding. On a positive note there were little chunks taken out of it. Also i saw a few legs of a small hermit crab littered on the bottom of the aquarium. I sat in front of the aquarium for about 30 minutes tonight and he/she just looked at me and really didn't seem to care whether or not I was there. I had my underwater camera with me and held it up to show it to the octopus. Curiously enough he/she seemed to follow it to a point with its eyes. He/she didn't move around the tank today alot. I saw him/her on the opposite side of the tank away from his/her den today for a little bit. I think its going to take a bit for it to get used to.the lighting. I also put red led lighting on the tank. That concludes todays events.

 

[DWhatley]

With a diurnal there is no need for a red light to view the octopus. They sleep at night. It does not seem to keep them awake so if you want to use it for a moon light there should be no harm. The one we had on Octane's tank was color setable. Unfortunately, every time the power went off it would revert to white. It took me awhile to figure out why Octane was upset and pacing the aquarium one night until I realized the days thunderstorm had reset the thing. After numerous outagest that summer, we just removed it.

 

[Lmecher]

Congratulations and to your new little one!

 

[mtlarsen]

Check. Red light useless. Makes the tank look cool though.

 

[DWhatley]

... and you can leave it on for your own pleasure as long as it is not so bright that your new guy can get his beauty sleep. If you see him night pacing then at least put it on a timer so that it will go off when you go to bed. Octane would hit the sack about three seconds before or after the daylight turned off. I had a video showing this but, alas, it is on an old photobucket account and seems to no longer be accessable since I went from a paying to a nonpaying user.

[edit] I was able to change the pb link on the TONMO post. The yellow video was taken just as the tank lights went out

 

[mtlarsen]

Denise,

What was the lighting schedule that you used of Octane? I have my lights set to come on at 2pm and go out at 10pm.

 

[DWhatley]

Hard to remember but I think we did 12 and 12 with either 11:00 or midnight the lights out (I am a night owl). The extended daylight was more for the corals (softies but still photosynthetic). He seemed to rise and shine around 3:00 PM on the weekends but would nap during parts of the day. OhToo kept a similar schedule.

The new little one is up around 11:00 (could be earlier but I am not) and is coming out looking for breakfast/lunch and then disappears until supper time (6:30 ish). He got a large hermit (dead and minus the shell) yesterday for lunch and did not show up for dinner but was out this AM and took two shore shrimp about an hour apart. He was not overly zealous taking the second but I believe he ate it.

 

[mtlarsen]

Day 3

So today was essentially like yesterday. He/She made one escursion outside of his/her den. I found him/her at the top of the aquarium near the overflow. I offered a piece of shrimp and he/she took the shrimp and it appears to have eaten it. Later in the evening I fed again and this time he/she took it but 86'ed the piece of shrimp out of the "escape hatch" in the rear of her/his den. I call it an escape hatch because my octopus went thru great effort to get a piece of pvc pipe to the rear of the tank. Other than that not much happened. I fed my brittle stars the leftovers on a bamboo skewer. Everyone tells you how strong the octopuses are, but brittle stars hold their own in playing tug-o-war.

 

[DWhatley]

I suspect one feeding a day (and consider one fast day but it is very hard to make yourself not feed) is right for this growth stage. Some people even feed every other day. We don't seem to have issues with them overeating but a fast day seems to keep their appetite more regulated. If you start seeing rejection of food, try both this and some live crabs (live crabs a couple of times a week are a good idea anyway). One thing we learned to watch for at feeding time was elimination of the last meal. Once we saw that, we knew they would eat.

I am glad you are having fun with the brittle . You can feed them easily by hand as well. Once it knows you are feeding the octo on a schedule, it will be a minor (but enjoyable) nuisance so it is helpfull to feed the brittle first.

 

[mtlarsen]

The reason that I am feeding shrimp only is because my octopus has sandwiches walking around the aquarium (i.e. hermit crabs, emerald crabs, and snails.) I will not feed tomorrow. Maybe it willing intice him/her to come out of the den instead of getting dinner in bed. Lol.