Octopus eggs

[DWhatley]

They look great!
Is that powerhead still turned on? You might want to turn it off or be sure you have a sponge around the intake. As wily as they are, they are still very poor swimmers and can easily be sucked into the impeller.

 

[Tomh]

Thats awesome interested in one please. Thanks Tom

 

[butler]

I put a coarse sponge, which other octopuses I’ve had hated to touch, around the imtake. I also have a canister filter and I put a white fine mesh filter sock around it. Hopefully that will work or should I do another sponge around it? Other Questions:

1. Only one has hatched (about an hour ago). How quickly do all the others usually hatch ?
2. It’s kind of bad timing as we are leaving tomorrow morning to go out of town for four days. Any advice on feeding? I have about 800 mysid shrimp in another tank that I’ve been buying to feed them. I also bought some frozen mysid. Should I just dump about a quarter of the live mysids in the tank to cover any additional hatchlings over the next four days? A neighbor has offered to help and maybe she could put in some frozen mysids instead since there is only one hatchling so far. Thoughts?

 

[Tomh]

Could you have your neighbor feed some mysid daily?

 

[butler]

Yes she might be able to put some in daily.

 

[butler]

All hatched last night. Mom has died. Did 30% ish water change and then added about 200 mysids. The babies hid with all the activity on my part. My neighbor will add mysids daily. I’m glad we got to witness the big day!

I will add videos. The one video of the babies is apparently too large to upload so I will work on it.

 

[butler]

Videos

 

[butler]

Update:

10 days post hatching. About 40 babies left. Feeding lots of mysids daily. As long is the tank light is off, most like to stay on the glass or in the sand next to the glass. A few have decided the sponge doesn’t feel too bad and have made their home precariously inside the intake of my powerhead. I’ve put in about 150 mysids each night. Some of the babies will immediately start actively hunting, however they are not very good hunters yet, at least not while I am watching. However, every morning when I check the tank, I’m not seeing any mysids so I’m assuming they’re being caught.

 

[Tomh]

interested and watching. Tom

 

[butler]

Update:

Now we are down to about 20 babies seen on the glass in the early morning, about half of what was seen last week. A quote by DWhatley has become a favorite not only in our home but actually at my workplace where everyone is following closely. “Losses will be heavy the first week.” Is there any other type of live food other than mysids that are good to feed the babies? Maybe less agile prey? I still wonder if some losses are due to underdeveloped hunting skills.

Here’s a fun picture. I walked in the other day and there were about eight babies just sitting on the sand against the glass all in a row.

 

[DWhatley]

Hand feeding when you can (frozen mysis at the end of a pipette). If you can find frozen (I have not had luck with dried) cyclops (Cyclop-eeze is no longer available), that could also be loaded into a pipette and squirted on them with some success (Mine was red so I could see a little uptake). You can also try adding amphipods in mass to the tank. Adding some floating seaweed might also help concentrate the food.