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Octo keeping...again

I put a much lower wattage, regular flourescent light on there and still no luck with him venturing from his den. He no longer will accept krill. He will take a few bites and then throw it out. But he will eat blue leg hermits, fiddler crabs, and shrimp (all live). I usually drop the fiddlers near his den, should I just let him find them on his own? How long will they live in salt water? I figure eating is more important than him coming out alot. But he always has one eye on me, watching. (kinda creepy)

And he is only turning grey when the lights are off now.
 
Shea,
Serentipity is very shy too. I found with Octane (who was adult and never very shy) and with SOME of the mercs that just making myself sit in front of the tank for at least 15 minutes EVERY night (whether or not I could see the octo) seemed to be at least part of the key to being accepted. Serendipity stayed out the longest yet with me tonight and actually came up to the front. When she went back to her underground den, I left but saw her out again and just sat while she hunted. She will allow me to stoke the tank and came up to the corner I was "petting" but would not follow my finger to the front. Since she does not appear until after the room lights are off, we have been using only red light on one side of the tank (her tank is split into two different tanks with tubes between them and an opaque black top with light cutouts so lighting one side really only lights the one side). Until she starts coming out with the room lights on, I think we will leave the one side dark in the evening but leave the lights on in the day for the few corals and macro that need it. If you have a standard screw in fixture, there are red LEDs that will fit as well as using red velum over a light or over the cover (Humm, now that I have said that, I think I have a piece that I can put over the light opening - glad you posted!)
 
My experience with fiddlers in the tank is for them to last about two weeks, but usually they are found and eaten before that time.

The live along the ocean shore , burrow into damp sand, so they don't really live in the water full time.

Nancy
 
dwhatley;124945 said:
We have been using only red light on one side of the tank (her tank is split into two different tanks with tubes between them and an opaque black top with light cutouts so lighting one side really only lights the one side).

I've personally found red light works quite well with the littler guys makes them feel that it's night time. Obviously if you have other things in the tank that need light then you would need to have some light part of the time. But maybe you could reverse the light cycle so that you turn the time when your at work into daytime and then have the red light on when your at home, you should see more activity out of your little one, however it is sometimes slightly harder to seem them in the red light...
 
Thanks Perky,

When you mentioned "little" ones are you referring to day active adults or nocturnal pygmies? I have raised three generations (but only from one octo) of pygmies and have learned to squit (but not photograph) with the red light but they never really acclimated to even room light (one was marginal). Hopefully both Shea's little guy and Serendipity will acclimate to brighter light over time. My adult hummelincki (and I think Shea's previous adult) did not have issues with being daytime active under tank lighting but I have no clue when or if this will change (or if it is male/female dependent). The tank is near a window in a room without curtains so trying to reverse the day cycle won't work in my case. We are experimenting with the half red half white to see if that reduces the light enough to encourage activity earlier in the day but she has not shown up yet tonight. We both have had our little ones for less than two weeks so the jury will be out for quite awhile yet :wink:
 
Otocon will run out of his den to grab himself a fiddler crab and then drag it back home. He will also accept them from my hand now. I have reduced my lighting to 2 small 15 watt flourescent bulbs, but still no change in behavior. I think it is all about finding his "comfort zone". For instance I have noticed that since I got him, the more time spent in front of the tank, the more he has started to come out. Granted all he does is come halfway out of his den and watch everything that's goin on, but that's better than all the way in with one eye peering out at me. We had our first water change today and he reached out an grabbed my finger, each arm is only about 3" but he is really strong! He almost broke my feeding stick in our epic "tug-of-war" match :smile:

On a side note...how often should I feed him? In three days he has had three fiddlers and I don't know how many hermits. Plus he would eat another fiddler if I'd let him! He seems healthy, this is about the period that ocho stopped eating. I figure when Saturday comes (1 week mark) and he's still living and eating, we'll be in the clear. Dwhatley, what do you keep your water quality at? Sorry for the long post.
 
Shea;125009 said:
Sorry for the long post.
:roflmao::roflmao:

Shea;125009 said:
Dwhatley, what do you keep your water quality at?

Octane was in a 4 year old tank with a DIY UG that had has several flooring substrate replacements but the powerheads had finally given up the ghost in his last month. I never showed any ammonia or nitrites but my nitrates were always high (close to 80 ppm at times) and I won't use a UG again (I wish the reef did not have one but that tank won't be reworked for a loooooong time). After 'Tane was in the tank a couple of months, I was changing 5 gallons of water twice a week in addition to the canister charcoal filter and skimmer. The UG has since been removed and new sand flooring added - now what to put in it :cool2:

Serendipity's tank is new with new bottom substrate but LR of similar tank age or older than Octane's tank and all of it was actively in a populated tank or sump hours or minutes prior to being placed in this tank. It has about 2.5 times times the water volume and a much larger inline skimmer (no canister but carbon in a filter sock actively receives the water the skimmer does not take). I never had an official cycle (or even traces of ammonia) but the LR was well healed and part of the water was not new. So far no detectable nitrates but the bottom substrate has not had time to accumulate much.

I would feed Otocon all he wants at this stage since he is in his highest growth period. My limited octopus experience gauge on aquarium acclimation success is two days and then two and a half weeks. The first two days seem to be the making it through the shipping ordeal and the next two weeks assimilating the new environment.
 
So can I throw a few fiddler crabs in his tank and just let him eat at his leisure until they are gone? He won't take frozen or freeze dried ever since he had his first live crab. That makes giving him a live crab or two every day kind of hard with my weird work hours. Does Serendipity have any tank mates?
 
I used to put a fiddler in 'Tanes tank on the days he didn't want his shrimp. Sometimes he would eat it before the next night, other times it was a day or two before it was consumed so there should be no harm in feeding and then throwing in one live one after you think he is full but I don't know how well just feeding at will all the time would work out. He would likely not starve but may not ever become human interactive. As he grows, you may want to cut back as there seems to be a point that it shortens their life span but I don't think it is while they are this young (note this is hobbiest opinion and not scientific observation).

I have kept my octo tank mates to a minimum so there are always several interesting serpents and meat eating stars (no veggie only eaters as they would starve). In the past, I kept pencil urchins but the unfortunate pinning of OP and the removal of coraline algae (no more purple octopus when that all disappeared) has relegated them to my sumps (which has worked out quite well). I also have some of the short tentacled orange sun polyps because 'Tane had no problems touching them and a couple gorgonians but no swimming critters because Octane did not even like the little guppie sized bi-catch fish I tried. One interesting food/critter we enjoyed was the full sized live shrimp we found at a bait store during our trip to Charleston. They told me the shrimp would not survive but we got them home alive and put them in my son's almost empty 65 gallon. Once a week or so, I would add one (only one) to 'Tane's tank (they lived a couple of months). They were kind of neat to have and my grandaughter was sad that they were food since she enjoyed watching them. I think a shrimp that size (about 3") might intimidate Serendipity now though. If you have swimmers, it may be why Otocon won't stay out much. He may get accustomed to them but his take the food and run suggests he is afraid something else will take it from him (possibly prior experience, because something in the tank makes him alert to the possibility or just juvenile second nature.)
 
Otocon is in a with a featherduster worm. Of course he had to taste that too. He acts like a baby, "I wonder what this tastes like?". I was just curious on tankmates for him :smile:.
 
LOL! He didn't EAT it. Just covered it and gave it a taste. But that's not saying Serendipity will do that. Otocon is just a pig that has to sample anything that moves :smile:! Oh yeah, no harm done to the featherduster it's doing great.

I just took a look at oto, he's eaten another hermit. That's 7 out of 15 in about 4 days! Maybe I should name him porky :wink:
 
What kind of hermits? Are they the small blue leg or the larger brown ones? None of my octos have eaten hermits but maybe I try the wrong kind. Gregs mercs eat like little pigglets too ;>)
 
They're blue leg hermits. He won't touch the snails though. Now that I see how much he is eating and how quickly he catches his prey, I'm still nervous, but not as much.
 
I just got home from work, and as I'm sitting here watching tv, oto decided to watch me tonight from the front of the glass and flash colors to get my attention for food!! Unfortunately he didn't want krill and I'm all out of fiddlers until tomorrow. At least he is becoming more comfortable :smile:
 

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