New Aculeatus(?) Journal - Octopus Prime!

I looked and looked for him from about 7:00 until almost 9:00. I saw a lot of LR with octo eyes but no octo. Almost as soon as the lights went out (there is a red LED on 24/7 and 4 white and blue LED's on during the day) he was out swimming and didn't seem at all afraid of me. He ate one newly killed shore shrimp and when I tried a piece of Octane's frozen, a live shore shrimp got too interested. OP didn't eat the frozen but the curious shrimp is no more. It appears that two shore shrimp a night satisfies him (exactly twice what the mercs ate).

After maybe 15 minutes, he all but dove to the bottom and froze. I was almost afraid something dreadful had happened. He sat there and held his breath for a bit then started breathing again. When I rubbed the tank, he slowly back away and went into a barnacle. OP seems to be either very active or totally recluse with no middle ground.
 
Thanks, It actually looks better than I can photograph. It was a second hand DIY that we bought for my son but he found it difficult to clean and swapped it for a rectangular 65 we vicarously accquired. We removed the leaky top, sawed off, shortened and moved the overflow, removed a front support stud and redrilled and resupported the frame, cut off the hood top, added an escape proof hinged lid (now with air holes) and then added a door decoration. Now it is the easiest to maintain tank in the house and looks appropriate in my living room. With the two door cornered cabinet, water changes take two minutes and with the low light, algae is never a problem so the tank need to be wiped down in the inside about once a month (I do stir the sand a little every week). It was redesigned as a ceph tank but I plan to convert our 140 to an octo tank and move the reef to this tank (with more lighting) - eventually :wink:
 
I thought OP looked small in the pictures, all the color and shape look right for aculeatus and mature size can vary but wow is he small. Most of the octos that are available in my area are aculeatus, the two females I have had one had a mantle of almost 4" and the one I have now is only about 2.5". ( both with eggs ) Happy he made the trip okay. Lookin good :cool2:
 
OP came up and played with my fingers again tonight and would swim into my fingers for a quick mantle pet. He seems most active around 11:30 - 12:00 PM. Neal was able to feed him around 6:30 but he was not over joyed with being disturbed. We have set the timer to turn the lights off earlier to see if he will adapt and come out to play before Neal goes to bed :wink:

I hope Mucktopus will take a look at him and his size to suggest an alternate ID.
 
sounds like the tank took a little work, but it also sounds like it came out pretty good. i wanna build a large tank sometime in the near future. i need to research it some more tho. i have a background in construcion, but glass isn't cheap, so i wanna make sure i do it right.
 
OP died tonight

I am not sure why. When I came home he was pinned by two arms by the pencil urchin with several brissle worms attached to the pinned arms. I removed the urchin and could see damage at the end of his arms and could tell he was very weak. I moved him to a breeder net inside the tank to keep preditors away but he gave no resistence to being moved.

I checked on him several times an hour. Initially he was breathing very heavily but he seemed to be recovering after an hour or two but I think he had expired. He does not even look dead :cry: but I cannot see breathing and he does not react to my fingers.

It reminds me of Tuvalu being trapped by the starfish and leaves the same questions. Was he already dieing and the urchin could take advantage or did the urchin trap and tramatize the octo? Was his zealous night time activity really restless sesenence or was he just happily active? Why didn't he throw an arm when the urchin pinned him? We know he was not young (4.5 months in captivity but sexually immature on arrival) but he was eating well and did not show signs of stress beyond the first hour after acclimation (tank parms are zero on nitrites and ammonia, ph 83 but 30 on nitrates).
 
I'm really sad. I don't think the relocation was a major factor though.

I just went downstairs for a last confirmation and to remove OP from the tank. My knobby star had found its way into the breeder net and was doing his clean up work. I successfully keep the knobbies with the Mercs and Octane so it was confirmation that OP was no longer viable. OP still looks alive and it is so sad, he was easy to fall in love with.
 
oh no.

I have been in the process of moving, myself (the reason for this relocation) and so i have been away for a while without updates. I was very happy to see that the acclimation went well and all of Denise's descriptions were very consistent with his behavior under my care, but it looks like there were other forces in play :frown:

I have been on the road all day and am exhausted, but more later. RIP. Octopus Prime was a GREAT first octopus.
 

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