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- Dec 22, 2004
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This is a cross-post from my thread on Sleipner, but it was suggested I start another to bring in a broader audience. I hope some of the pros out there (Roy, Adam, Jean, etc) might have some advice.
I received my octopus (a captive-raised bimac, ~3.5 months old) three weeks ago and he has been acting rather strangely. He's rejected all food for over two weeks, creates strange poos, and isn't observed to leave his den at all.
After a short acclimation period of a couple days he spent the better part of a week active in the tank finding dens and hunting during the day. He didn't seem to mind my presence and we did the tug-of-war once. He wasn't very skilled at hunting crabs but managed to eat at least three in as many days, and produced many of the red poops I was used to from my cuttlefish.
After that he retreated to a new den of PVC and for the past two weeks hasn't been seen to leave. I peer at him often, but he doesn't seem to mind my presence: he appears healthy and reactive inside his den and doesn't exhibit overt color changes, breathe heavily more than once, ink or move to the back/pull shells in to hide as I would expect if he was afraid of me.
Most worrisome is there's no evidence that he has eaten in the two weeks. He's been offered fiddler crabs, Oregon tidepool crabs, hermit crabs, three genera of snail and thawed krill. There are a couple crabs in the 75 gallon tank with him, and I have also offered them to him by hand (he doesn't seem to mind my hand, and for the first week of this condition would wrap arms around a small crab being held by me, but would give up if it squirmed too much). I've also put overturned snails and hermit crabs in front of his den--easy morsels within arm's reach--to no avail. I've offered the krill four times (both by hand and with a skewer), and in one instance he sliced and tasted with his beak but rejected it.
His poops are strange. Instead of the oblong red poops 3-4 mm long, now I see smaller (2-3 mm), flesh-colored/translucent poops with stringy ends. At some points I've noticed a few of these per day, other days none.
I'm somewhat worried about autophagy, but I haven't noticed any stubby arms (he does move around a bit inside his den), and besides not leaving the den he doesn't show any symptoms of being fearful.
I've also wondered if perhaps the animal's biological clock is wired a bit wrong and is producing infertile and malformed eggs, spitting them directly into the water column as the strange poops I've noticed. No stalked festoons or eggs are visible inside his den.
The water is pristine and 68 degrees. I've been doing water tests every few days during the ordeal. The behavior began a few days after he settled into a 1" PVC den. The pipe was rinsed and set in the water 3-4 weeks before he arrived so I assume its lost any manufacturing residues. The tank has a 13 hour photoperiod and a macroalgae refugium on a reverse cycle to keep the pH stable.
Any ideas? Its possible that he's hunting amphipods at night, but every time I've gone through the room at night to get to the bathroom he's been in his den. And I'd think he'd have to really be filling up not to take the snails and crabs sitting outside his den!
I'll attach a few videos of him in his first week when he was acting normal; for no other reason as a size reference and to show he's never been that great at catching crabs
Sleipner attacking a crab 16 seconds
Sleipner tries again 17 seconds
Sleipner breathing 8 seconds
PS to Tony--is there any way to use an tag on the forums for the videos?
I received my octopus (a captive-raised bimac, ~3.5 months old) three weeks ago and he has been acting rather strangely. He's rejected all food for over two weeks, creates strange poos, and isn't observed to leave his den at all.
After a short acclimation period of a couple days he spent the better part of a week active in the tank finding dens and hunting during the day. He didn't seem to mind my presence and we did the tug-of-war once. He wasn't very skilled at hunting crabs but managed to eat at least three in as many days, and produced many of the red poops I was used to from my cuttlefish.
After that he retreated to a new den of PVC and for the past two weeks hasn't been seen to leave. I peer at him often, but he doesn't seem to mind my presence: he appears healthy and reactive inside his den and doesn't exhibit overt color changes, breathe heavily more than once, ink or move to the back/pull shells in to hide as I would expect if he was afraid of me.
Most worrisome is there's no evidence that he has eaten in the two weeks. He's been offered fiddler crabs, Oregon tidepool crabs, hermit crabs, three genera of snail and thawed krill. There are a couple crabs in the 75 gallon tank with him, and I have also offered them to him by hand (he doesn't seem to mind my hand, and for the first week of this condition would wrap arms around a small crab being held by me, but would give up if it squirmed too much). I've also put overturned snails and hermit crabs in front of his den--easy morsels within arm's reach--to no avail. I've offered the krill four times (both by hand and with a skewer), and in one instance he sliced and tasted with his beak but rejected it.
His poops are strange. Instead of the oblong red poops 3-4 mm long, now I see smaller (2-3 mm), flesh-colored/translucent poops with stringy ends. At some points I've noticed a few of these per day, other days none.
I'm somewhat worried about autophagy, but I haven't noticed any stubby arms (he does move around a bit inside his den), and besides not leaving the den he doesn't show any symptoms of being fearful.
I've also wondered if perhaps the animal's biological clock is wired a bit wrong and is producing infertile and malformed eggs, spitting them directly into the water column as the strange poops I've noticed. No stalked festoons or eggs are visible inside his den.
The water is pristine and 68 degrees. I've been doing water tests every few days during the ordeal. The behavior began a few days after he settled into a 1" PVC den. The pipe was rinsed and set in the water 3-4 weeks before he arrived so I assume its lost any manufacturing residues. The tank has a 13 hour photoperiod and a macroalgae refugium on a reverse cycle to keep the pH stable.
Any ideas? Its possible that he's hunting amphipods at night, but every time I've gone through the room at night to get to the bathroom he's been in his den. And I'd think he'd have to really be filling up not to take the snails and crabs sitting outside his den!
I'll attach a few videos of him in his first week when he was acting normal; for no other reason as a size reference and to show he's never been that great at catching crabs
Sleipner attacking a crab 16 seconds
Sleipner tries again 17 seconds
Sleipner breathing 8 seconds
PS to Tony--is there any way to use an tag on the forums for the videos?
