New Octo Advice Needed

[Spinelli1]

I’m sorry I’m late to your post! I’ve kept mostly briareus for the last 11 years- my absolute favorites! I didn’t read in previous posts what time you’re looking for your new friend to be out- but know that briareus are crepuscular/ nocturnal, so you have to look for him to be out at times that fall in those ranges- don’t expect him to be out in the middle of the day.

I have always gotten mine from the Florida Keys, and I feed them live blue legged hermit crabs and I stick feed pea sized raw shrimp from the grocery.

The last thing to consider is that you’ve got a female who is comfortable and started to brood... wait a few more days of not seeing it before worrying about that.

Thank you. How can you tell it's a female ready to brood? Is that good or bad?

No sign of her today. We searched with the red flashlight and tried to feed at 8am via stick for a half hour and again once lights went out around 5pm.

I have a cam on the tank 24/7 with motion detection so I believe she hasn't been out at all. She could be moving within the rocks and not in the open.

I'll keep you posted daily if I see her or not. If not, let me know when I should worry or do something different.

Thank you

 

[sedna]

Can you keep red lights on all night long? Sometimes if you have a completely dark time in your photoperiod, they learn to wait and only come out when it’s totally dark. I keep lights on 24/7- but from 7pm to 9am it’s red lights only!

The way to sex an octopus is to check out the tip of its third right arm. If it’s “stubby” then that’s a hectocotylus, it’s male reproductive organ. You can find lots of references here. So first you have to see the octopus...

If it’s a female who’s decided to brood, then it’s laying eggs (fertile or not) and will die soon after they hatch. The way to tell if it’s a female starting to brood is to watch to see if it’s building a “barricade” around it’s den, packing any shell, rocks, substrate- anything it can find- tightly into any hole of its den.

I’d set my alarm for the middle of the night and check the tank out then. Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[Spinelli1]

Can you keep red lights on all night long? Sometimes if you have a completely dark time in your photoperiod, they learn to wait and only come out when it’s totally dark. I keep lights on 24/7- but from 7pm to 9am it’s red lights only!

The way to sex an octopus is to check out the tip of its third right arm. If it’s “stubby” then that’s a hectocotylus, it’s male reproductive organ. You can find lots of references here. So first you have to see the octopus...

If it’s a female who’s decided to brood, then it’s laying eggs (fertile or not) and will die soon after they hatch. The way to tell if it’s a female starting to brood is to watch to see if it’s building a “barricade” around it’s den, packing any shell, rocks, substrate- anything it can find- tightly into any hole of its den.

I’d set my alarm for the middle of the night and check the tank out then. Good luck and keep us posted!

The red light I have is a flashlight so that wouldnt work. I'm ordering some lunar LEDs to have on timer when these lights dim out. Until they come I left the regular lights on 3% for the night. Extremely dim but not totally black.

No sign of the octopus today. Did a scan behind the tank, in all the overflows etc to make sure and couldnt find him. Hes def in the tank.... alive or not I'm not sure.
Offered food after lights out for 30 min and nothing.

 

[Spinelli1]

Unfortunately, still no sign of the octo today. :-(

Tried to offer food for a while after lights went out. Still nothing. Camera has yet to notice motion in the tank (besides some walking crabs or an occasional piece of dust floating by)

Tomorrow will mark a week since he has been spotted. I have no proof that he has eaten. Should I go into search and recover mode yet? I'm just afraid of disturbing it if it is alright and just shy but I'm a little worried something went wrong. I read a previous post that briareus is rumored to scare itself to death. Could it be possible that is what happened when the Damsels darted at him?

 

[sedna]

I don’t know about that- I can neither confirm or deny that rumor. BUT, I have absolutely torn the rock work apart in your situation! I’ve found dead octopuses, and live hiding ones. Correct or not, if I were you I’d have broken down and gone into search mode... Good luck!

 

[Spinelli1]

@sedna @DWhatley Soooooo we went into search and recover mode.

It's a nice size tank at 200G and I have a nice amount of rock. We started with the top layer if rock and worked down. We took some rock out of the tank after inspection and the rest we inspected and piled in the corner of the tank. We came down to the last rock, a large one. Flipped it...and....nothing. he was nowhere to be found. We searched all around the tank. Under. The sump. The overflows (which are sealed up good) but couldnt find him. I started thinking he got through the little slits in the overflow and went down and got sucked into the UV filter. My employee had thought he had seen something move in a rock we inspected and insisted we check again. I did but this time lifted it from the water. Low and behold, deep in a hole I saw a bluish grayish blob and what looked like suckers. I was sure it was him and declared that Jelly O. had been found....and unfortunately he appeared dead. I put the rock in a bucket with the octo hole facing up for inspection and seconds later his leg came slithering out. He was on his way out so we put the rock back in the water and sure enough, he came out, sat on the rock looking at us, then slithered off to another rock. We tried to offer food, a leg came out to inspect but that was it. We rearranged and put some rock back in. We kept some out just so there isnt so much rock in there that it is impossible to narrow down his possible location. Once he gets bigger we will put more in.

Anyway, he seems MUCH bigger. In the video you can see his webbing a bit. It probably is that he is just very young. We will now leave him be the next month and keep offering food.

In the beginning I had put about 10-12 crabs in the tank. Mostly small/tiny. In our searches we saw 2 or 3 max. All of which on the larger side. He probably ate the rest. I had enough rock and caverns that he probably could have been moving around the rocks without coming out of the entire mountainous structure. We didn't put the mountain back together. More scattered rock and a few piles.

Should I restock the tank with more small crabs to keep him growing? Or wait and see without the crabs if he responds to the stick feeding? Do you think growing him up on live crabs will lessen the odds he will be interactive when he gets older?

 

[DWhatley]

It is hard to say. As I mentioned, until he/she is about 5 month, it is unlikely you will see much of him/her but I have been able to establish a feeding time and at least know the young was alive. If there is plenty of food in the tank, I suspect you won't see it for another month or so but this may be better for health.

 

[Spinelli1]

Thanks. I'll go that route and put some more crabs in. I'll keep offering food and putting some pieces of shrimp in. I had dropped a bunch by mistake during feeding attempts. Most went into the rock outcropping. I didnt find any today while dissembling, so he could have been eating them discreetly. Or the crabs could have been. They seem to all pop out when they smell the food.

 

[Spinelli1]

 

[sedna]

Yep, it’ll probably get friendlier as it ages. Glad you found it safe and sound!

 

[tonmo]

lol, funny banter in the video. How's this guy holding up?

 

[Spinelli1]

lol, funny banter in the video. How's this guy holding up?

He seems to be doing good. Still havent seen him ever come out. But now I know where his den is and we can spy on him. His hole is facing the front of the tank. I put a 23 more small fiddler crabs in since about 9 of the last 11 had dissapeared. Hes definitly moving around in that den and many times I peek in I can see his eye peeking out. Hopefully hes getting bigger and feels like coming out soon. Heres a pic of the hole with his eye peeking out, probably wondering what the heck I'm doing

 

[Nancy]

It’s good that your Octo is in a place where you can seen him, even if it’s only an eye!

Nancy

 

[tonmo]

agree, great setup!

 

[Spinelli1]

UPDATE:

So we saw Jelly O. in his hole for 2.5 weeks.
Offered food on a stick to no avail.
We never saw him come out and the night cam never detected motion from him.

Then he dissapeared again.

A week and a half passed.
Little by little the large population of crabs seemed to dwindle. I decided last Friday that this week we would need to go searching again if he didnt reappear. This Wednesday (today) would be the day.

Then last night I was by my office and decided to offer some frozen shrimp on a stick at night. But I didnt know where in the tank he was (or if he was alive) I figured he was alive because the crab population had went from crawling with them to not a single crab detectable.

I held the shrimp outside his hole. Nothing for 10 minutes. I was a bit deflated because the tank is large with many little holes in rock. He could be in any of them. I held it a few more places. Nothing. Then i moved the shrimp and thought i saw a delayed shadow next to it. Did it again. And again this happened. I tried to peer in but it is on a large angle to see in the spot and with the tanks curved glass it gets very distorted and magnified on angles and its hard to see. I thought I saw something. I felt it was him.

Confident enough to say it was him. But not sure. Not sure enough to say I definitly saw him.

The shrimp had fallen off so I reloaded and headed to the same spot. Then it happened. Darn bugger reached out and grabbed the pole and pulled it from my hand!!! The stick went into the tank. These are large 36" bamboo skewers. It's the only way to reach down. And he ripped it right from me.

Afterwards I tried again but no luck. So I shined my red light in to find him and when I looked in the other side of the rock, there he was. Hes under the rock now. Not in it. He dug out the sand under the rock. I reloaded again and he wrapped his tentacles around the food and took it. I tried to hand feed him but with my entire arm in the tank, I couldnt reach far enough down. I loaded the last of the whole shrimp on the skewer and he took that piece too.

This was at 11pm.

Over the last month I have pushed up his night time a bit. His sunset is at 7pm TT (tank time) I slowly have moved TT to about 4 hours ahead of my time. So his lights slowly begin to set around 2 and it is 'night' at 3pm. Probably more like dusk since the office light is still on. Then at 4pm we turn the office light off to give 30 min of just the tanks night light on before trying to feed.

Today, I was eager to try. So we did. And he took the food again. So maybe he is coming around. He hasn't wanted to come out. But he is taking the shrimp. And today he did at 4:30pm (8:30pm TT) which is nice if he will start doing that as we can feed him easier. Hopefully soon he will decide he wants to come out and say hi or explore.

I will update more when it develops.