octopus joubini eggs/young?

[rcl]

Hi everyone!

Every day I become more sure that my octopus is caring for eggs, and that I indeed have octopus joubini. I have looked on the internet and found this information --


The Pygmy Octopus, Octopus joubini, lays about 150 large eggs.

Other baby octopuses, like the large egged Octopus joubini, look like miniature adults and immediately start living their life on the bottom.

Cephbase seems to be down, but I'm hoping to learn more there.. such as gestation period and all that.



This sounds like it could be possible for me to rear these eggs in captivity? Has anybody tried doing this? I assume I would need to get rid of the shore shrimp I have in the tank (or would I?), the fiddler crab, and the large hermit crab that I have in the tank. What about the baby octopuses, would they eat each other? Would I have to separate them somehow to avoid cannibalism?

I read online on a research study that there was a 95% hatch rate. I understand that in the wild an extremely small % of octopus reach maturity, I'm guessing this is actually because of predation?

I know I have some small pods and such on my live rock, it is of decent quality and has been in here for a year or so.. but I would be willing to purchase food as well. What kind of food could I get to introduce into the tank and have the babies eat? How long would it be until they could eat baby clams from octopets or fiddler crabs?

I have so many questions!

Robert

 

[Nancy]

Hi Robert,

Have a look at sharkbait's recent posts about his eggs and hatchlings.
He has a large-egged species.

Have you had a look at the eggs - or can you see them? There is an octo very similar to joubini that has small eggs. You have some hope of raising large egged hatchlings, but the small eggs hatch produce planktonic young, which are very difficult to raise.

You should't try to keep all the hatchlings in one tank - find a couple of othe people who will share them and put them into their tanks. Yes, they do eat each other.

Here is my story: A year ago dbbgs's Jetta (a briareus) had eggs and 3 of us shared them. I took only 6. The ones raised in cups with mysid shrimp lastest only about 8 weeks. Debbie (dbbga) had one sighting in her large tank some weeks later, but none grew to maturity. And I thought all of mine were dead (I looked and looked every day and night), but four months later a little red angy octo came out as we were scraping algae off the side. How incredible that she could have hidden all that time! Unfortunately, she lived only a few weeks longer, died of unknown causes.

So it is possible to put hatchlings in a mature tank and have them grow up. But it isn't easy.

Nancy

 

[DHyslop]

Do you even know that the eggs are fertile?

Dan

 

[rcl]

The news from everybody sounds a bit dismal! I'm wondering if everybody means they keep them in like styrofoam cups or if you are keeping them in some sort of creature cups in a larger tank?

I do not know if the eggs are fertile, or even if there ARE eggs yet! I just tried to investigate... there is a very large rock blocking the entrance to the den, and I pulled this out and had a flashlight ready. To my surprise there were still even more layers of shells!!! I could see 2 arms of the octo and they were gripping shells tightly!! I think I will not know anything until she budges, or octopus are found swimming around the tank..... the suspense is killing me though

I guess my plan will be to have many cups ready and be ready to make an order for pods at any given moment. I know rpk from the boards is local to me, perhaps I would share them with him if he was interested in trying to raise them.

If the octos do better in a tank than in cups it makes it sound like nutrition issues. As with everything octopus, sounds like we have some 'gray area' here

Robert

 

[rpk]

hi robert,
If you need some help with the eggs, don't hesitate to contact me. Don't know if I can be of much help? but would like to give a hand anyways.
keep me posted.
rpk

 

[rcl]

Ross,

I will definitely get ahold of you if I see babies running around if you have the interest! You probably still have a couple weeks or so to consider it of course

Robert