Octogon - ?O.Mercatoris New octopus!

[jakester]

still no hatchlings,but there is only about 20 to 40,not 100.do not know how i counted wrong.

 

[DWhatley]

There were many more hatchlings in Kooah's (O.briareus) clutch than the eggs I could see. I was never sure how many hatchlings were in Miss Broody's (O.mercatoris) clutch. Unlike Trapper's 6 the second group (her daughter's) kept getting out of the breeder nets the first week so I didn't know if I was putting new hatchlings or escapees in the net for the first two weeks. MY guestimates ran between 45 and 100

 

[jakester]

thanks for the response. i found out that i can get tiggerpods at my lfs.would they make a good part of the hatchlings diet?

 

[DWhatley]

I hand fed my meratoris hatchlings nightly with a combination of frozen foods (Cyclop-eeze and PE mysis, using a pipette) only until they were as large as shore shrimp. Then I added a few shore shrimp to their breeder nets (so they had something to hunt) and added fed freshly killed in addition to the frozen. I continued to feed by hand nightly through out their lives. One of mine, Wiley, refused to stay in the net and survived on what he found in the rocks and the Cyclop-eeze that circulted that tank. I tried pods in the nets but never saw evidence of them being eaten. This does not mean they were not or, perhaps more importantly would not have been if I had not fed by hand each night. It certainly won't hurt to grow any type of pod in the tank. I would NOT put shore shrimp in with them until the their total length exceeds the shrimp in fear of the shrimp picking on them. They may be large eggs but the octo is still pretty small (smaller than the O. briareus hatchlings in total birth length).

 

[jakester]

i think the eggs may be hatching. i am not sure,but when i look in her den one of the eggs looks like it's cut in half and empty.ubdate in a little bit

 

[jakester]

i'm possitive now! the have and are hatching!i only know this becaues there is empty egg shells in the den.i have seen no sighn of hatchlings.i'm going to check again right now.

 

[DWhatley]

Look on the walls for what appear to be white unfed tics. Also watch where the mother is brooding, you should see them being jetted out. Hopefully you are seeing hatching and not the deterioration of infertile eggs. It can take up to 10 days for them all to hatch but you should see a mass hatching soon if all is going well.

 

[Lmecher]

Oh how exciting I hope you find some inklets.

 

[SabrinaR]

Yay! Inklets! Good luck I hope all goes well.

 

[jakester]

thanks everyone! i still cannot find any babies though. i hope i find some(if any) soon.

 

[DWhatley]

There is one other scenario that is not fully confirmed. In some octopuse (and I don't even remember the species where this has been mentioned) it is thought that the mother may eat some of the eggs to survive her brooding. I have wondered if this may have happened with Trapper (although she ate during most of her brood time) since there were only 6 hatchlings (abnormally low for a merc but she was in the aquarium for 4 months before brooding, just at the max time thought to retain live sperm).

 

[jakester]

maybe that's the case.is this normal to not see any hatchlings for a few days?

 

[DWhatley]

No, usually a few early ones may be noticed and then the majority are swimming all over the water column like snow. With Kooah's brood (O. briareus), I was intently trying to look at a small group of may be 5 or 6 scattered in the aquarium and then was shocked as I look to my right to see a cloud of new hatchlings. With the larger merc hatching, the numbers seemed to be around 5-10 a day but still quite obvious.

 

[jakester]

since you said that i don't think i have any hatchlings. oh well

 

[DWhatley]

Can you still see eggs? It could be there are both fertile and infertile ones (just guessing on this).