O. Briareus - Inguz

Green_Tree

O. vulgaris
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Nov 15, 2009
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Well I got my new octo from tom today. Decided to have them hold it at a fedex location instead of letting the truck delivering it. By doing that i shortened the travel time by 6 hours.

Shipping was much better this time. Was shipped in a box with styrofoam and 2 heat packs.

Upon opening things up i found an octopus that had not inked in the bag and that was reacting to me.

Overall things are looking better than the first time and I am continuing to acclimate as i type. Still being cautious and keeping my :fingerscrossed: but i feel better about this one.
 
Well the new octo seems to headed on his way to a stable new home. I finally got him into the new tank and after about 2 minutes he crawled out of the mug he was in and slid into the rock work. I feel much better about this one but i wont feel at ease until hes been in the tank for at least 2 weeks with no problems. Once again hoping things go well. :fingerscrossed:
 
Thats great! I have only seen mine once since getting him Thursday. I have not been able to get him to eat though. :hmm:
I expect fiddlers from Paul tomorrow so hopefully these will entice him. Keeping my :fingerscrossed: for you :smile:

any photos?
 
Unfortunately I did not get any pictures while i was acclimating. i figured that with it going as well as it was i did not want to introduce any more stress or any chance for it to ink. As of yet it has not been named but I will try to get pictures in the next week or so.
 
I don't think photos w/o flash cause anxiety. From experience it is once flashed that that they may come to fear the bright monster. I am on my 7th and have never had one ink while acclimating. Actually the only one that inked was El Diablo just before he died, never want to see that again. I hope you see him soon, mine is making me nervous, this is by far the least I've seen of a new octopus including O. mercatoris who made it's den in a barnacle front and center. I think :fingerscrossed: will be in order for the next couple weeks.
 
:fingerscrossed::fingerscrossed:
Did you get a feel for the mantle length and arm length. Unfortunately as a lot (some of our scientific team are exceptions but they actually measure :biggrin2:) we don't do well as guessing measurements so I always suggest using a known object like a grape, pingpong ball or lemon (especially for mantle sizing) estimates. One of the cleverest ways to get an idea is to place a known object (coins are good for girth but rulers work well too) under a clear container during acclimation and you might consider that in the future (hopefully many months from now). As Linda mentioned, nonflash photos don't seem to be any more disruptive than the hulking thing watching them and you are about to see why I always recommend having a fully charged camera out as part of the acclimation advance perparation. You can at least look at the PICTURES for the next week or two :hmm: as you are unlikely to see much of the octopus.

Since we have had an unusual amount of non-briareus this year, pictures and descriptions may be helpful to determine species ... or not :biggrin2:
 
Ruler under the acclimation bag :banghead: I am kicking myself now. That is the best idea. An exact measurment to compare future growth, oh how I wish I had done this. I will definately make this part of my acclimation proceedure. :smile:
 
It is not accurate but does give scale :biggrin2: and is easier than some of the methods I have tried. I need to get a colored FLAT ruler though as I keep using measuring tapes and they are curved. Another thing you can do that takes a bit of time is to measure the container and then edit the picture adding the measurements. With Beldar's container, I blew it to full dimension on the monitor and then measured and marked mantle and arm lengths. That may have been one of the better I attempts but you can't account for curves or camera perspective so ruler under container is my normal choice.
 
Hmmm well i guess ill start with the photos. Yes i had thought about using the camera without a flash but the entire time i did my acclimation the room was very dark and he was in a bucket so most likely they would not have come out well.

Luckily i can help more on the mantle and arm ratio as when he first explored the tank before he found a suitable den area and began to excavate (where he has been since, least that i have seen.) he did stretch out his arms on the back wall at one point.

I would guess from memory that the mantle is about golf ball size. and His arms were reaching out at least a foot but i do not know if that is the extent. Once he is fully comfortable in his new life i plan to actually measure full extension but that is for in the future.

And i think i finally came up with a name for the little guy. If he doesnt do anything spectacular that just screams some other name im leaning towards Inguz.

Inguz being the rune of joyous deliverance and a new life. A rune of great power. And by some counts it is the 8th rune.

Im going to call him Iggy for short.
 
Well so far no more sightings of Iggy. I saw one small arm tip last night investigating one of the feeder shrimp that Tom sent with the second shipment. But other than that the only times I have see Iggy is when im in the sump with a light and i happen to look up. Iggy usually greets me with a reddish color almost saying get that light out of here, im trying to sleep. Either way ill feel better once i see Iggy out and about at some point.
 
Hehe first ide like to mention that it took me about 1 minute and a half to find this thread, before realizing that some kind moderator had replaced Dos with Iggy's name.

Anyways, Last night was an improvement, I still have not seen Iggy out of the den but I did get her (I know I have been using the male pronouns but somehow female just feels more correct with this one) to take a piece of krill off the feeding stick. Not sure if it was eaten or not bu seeing as how Iggy took it and i dont see it floating around the tank, im assuming that it got ate. Still waiting on Iggy to come out but the only movement i have seen is from the back of the den during the day to the front of the den during the night. Any thoughts on this behavior would be helpful.
 
I can put Dos back if you would prefer :gigas: but it helps locate threads if the name is in the title :wink:

Briareus are hard to call for behavior. I have kept 4 and two halves (meaning my two hatchlings, although at 6 months I suppose they are now wholes) and still can't give reliable expected behavior. The twins (Mama Cass and Tatanka) are very different in activity, behavior and looks. I am relatively certain Cassy is female and Tatanka male but SueNami was male and more interactive than females KaySoh and Kooah. Creepy (female, I think) was a total recluse but she was in a tank in an untrafficed area and came to me with seven arms truncated at the webbing. CaptFish's Legs Animal Mother's Kalypso and Norgebyblood's Schlemm were very social where other journals either just stopped or reported very little activity. (Ok, so maybe I OVER emphasized the use of the octos name in the journal title but the links are there for you to compare behavior :wink:)
 
Lol thanks D it was very helpful.

Day 3

Got to see Iggy out of her den for the first time today. Admittedly i had something to do with it but oh well. Was trying to feed Iggy some krill with my feeding stick. Upon presenting food and the same spot that she had eaten(?) at the prior day she promptly pushed the entire stick krill and all 5 inches away from the hole and then retreated back under the rock. I will assume for now that she was simply not hungry.
 
Day 4

Well today Iggy has continued to exacavate and move all of my sand around. She is becoming more comfortable though because she has made a secondary den in the front of the tank and is beginning to be ok with me looking at her. Once again i tried to feed her some krill and she quickly took the krill off of the feed stick and sent it flying in a jet of water. Ok i guess you dont want the krill.

Here are some pictures of her in her secondary den, sorry about quality but the camera was on the fritz.
PICT0173.jpg

PICT0174.jpg

PICT0175.jpg

PICT0176.jpg


Overall things look to be settling down and looking well... aside from the not eating thing but there is a lot of free live food in the tank so if she gets hungry she can hunt.
 
My O. briareus kept 2 dens also. The back of the tank den we called the "I want to be alone den" and the one in front "it's ok if you see me den". I would maybe try a different type of food. Table shrimp, scallops, squid. D noted Monty (yet to be identified species) will only accept dead food w/shell on. You can experiment. The universally irresistible fiddler crabs are a great food.
 

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