Our baby Squint from Oz.

[krogey]

Hi there,

We became parents for the first time last Friday! Yeeeaaayy!After 8mnths our new baby octo came down from Qld. we named him SQUINT.. fairly appropriate since you have to squint to see him!!
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As all new parents do we have some questions. First is does anyone have any idea what species he is!!?? All we know is that he is blood red in colour and would have come off the inner reef of Great Barrier.. he hasnt come out much and will only seem to take food in the dark which could be because he's nocturnal/or just a little shy still.
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Squint had his first feed 3 days after we had him of live crab... through the other days I had tried to get him to take fresh raw prawn meat but no go... and he would only attack the crab after i pushed it into the den he has made himself... last night though i accidentally dropped the crab as i was putting it in the tank and quick as a flash he dived on it so I am guessing it is a good thing that he is hunting on his own after only 5 days! Any ideas though on how to get him onto some prawn meat muscles etc. cause it gets pretty cold down here in Winter and i dont really fancy going crab hunting on the rocks in the pouring rain!
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Last but not least the nitrate is a little higher than i would like... 12ppm, he isn't seeming to mind to much though and i am wary about water changing too much while he is still settling in... any comments?

 

[joel_ang]

As for the Identification, A picture would be helpful but there is no guarantee because octos can change colour texture length...etc...etc but we will try our best. The octo could be:

Cyanea
Macropus
Pallidus

I get my cuttlefish to eat frozen food occasionally by putting the meat at the end of a stick. I try to get the meat to touch the suckers. Their suckers have alot of taste receptors so they might recognise this as food.

 

[Nancy]

Congratulations on the arrival of Squint. Sounds like he's doing fine.

The feeding stick has worked well for me with my bimac, too. It can become a way to contact and play with your octopus, too. I fed fresh scallops (pieces, that is) and frozen shimp pieces that way.

Not all species know how to drill mussels to open them. Depends on what that species eats out in the ocean.

Octopuses can usually tolerate small amounts of nitrates - the key things to watch for are ammonia, nitrites - and copper, of course.

Nancy

 

[NickA5582]

Congrats on your octo!
Pudge would only eat off a feeding stick, he had to have it out of my hand or in his shell.

 

[krogey]

Thanks for responses! I have been unable to access my pc so thats why has taken soooo long to get back!
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So much has happened in the last week... about 3 days or so after we got Squint one of the younger 'boys' (haha Tim if your reading!) that works at the Aquarium finally got the Octo that he ordered as well but was much bigger than he had expected about 20cm form mantle to tip.... and he only has 3ft tank so I did the unthinkable... I gave up my baby ... well really i just adopted him out and can go and see him and all, so it's really not as bad as it sounds but we had the bigger tank so it was just the right thing to do... plus Tim has this gift with all things marine.. this guy can keep anything !! so I know Squint is in good hands and i hear he's doing really well with feeding etc.
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As for new Octo... what a personality!!!i have named him Sparticus and he's day active and very curious!! mind you in the last day or so he has gone a bit quiet but I think it may be to do with salinity... it was a bit lower that what I would have liked but I'm in the process of fixing... he still has quite an appetite so Im not too worried... yet.
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On salinity... I read that Octo's like a slightly higher salinity... can anyone confirm/deny this? If higher salinity does this also mean a slightly lower temperature as well? And any comments on why higher salinity also appreciated.... Also the tank is fairly well established (about 1 year ) so even then do I still need to worry about Nitrite and Ammonia, I would have thought they only affect tanks fairly new... (still cycling).
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Look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

[Colin]

Hi

you still need to keep an eye on ammonia and nitrite as they will be the main problems you face if for example a bit of food gets left uneaten or something... so if anything looks amiss do a check for them.

Many people keeping reef tanks have the salt levels quite low.. down to 1.019 and even lower, this prevents fish parasites from being such a problem and many people find that crabs and shrimps will adjust too... but cephs are different in their needs and they need the water to be the same as natural seawater at 1.026. So higher than a normal tank not higher than the sea. Again, their skin is the reasson for that.

lastly, in cases where the filter is mature and maybe gets a big clogged the process of denitrification can reverse and nitrate reverts to nitrite and back to ammonia again!!!!

hope that helps

 

[krogey]

thanx.. I'll take that with me...