Pulpopus - A. aculeatus

[RoFlores]

He is doing great, he ate 2 krill today. I offered them on a bamboo skewer and before I could turn the camera on he was all over them so the video is just after he got them. He played with the skewer for a minute then he darted to his den.

 

[iAlex]

How cool! You put a Christmas Tree in the tank... xD

 

[RoFlores]

He loves the tree, he goes to that corner and tries to grab the ornaments that almost touch his tank. I was reading about Sedona, I hope you manage to arrange things so you can enjoy hey more. I was lucky enough to get one that likes being out and about almost all day long. But as soon as I feed him, zoom to his den for the next few hours. I was iced in this morning, my drive way is like a skating ring and I ran out of salt so I decided to feed pulpo. I managed to get a video of him getting the frozen Krill off the skewer.

 

[SabrinaR]

To be honest its just nice to know that Sedona is alive lol. After all this time with only the minor clue here and there to actually see her even the little bit that I have is a blessing.

It would have been nice for the company I got her from to have been honest about the kind of octo she is but they know almost nothing about octos (though a few people on TONMO emailed and talked with them to help educate) they simply dont seem to care.

 

[RoFlores]

Ok, here is another video of the tiny shrimp (if any one can help with a species id, I would really appreciate it) it's on 1/2 speed so you can see them. I think I managed to negotiate some real estate on top of a dresser in our spare room (if I move my seahorses out of there first) to try and breed the shrimp. I can see several females with eggs, so I will separate them into quart jars and see what happens. Play it on full screen so you can see them.

 

[DWhatley]

There are some red shrimp in Hawaii that were great for seahorses that may have been close in size. They were almost reasonable at one time but because their numbers are rapidly diminishing due to loss of natural habitat, the people that aquacultured them came under fire (and ultimately I believe taxation or fines) for selling them as food. The vendors I used grew and sustained their own but because of the political pressure they haulted sales for awhile. I don't know if things have changed since I stopped keeping seahorses a few years ago. Needless to say, try some with the horses if you have not already

 

[RoFlores]

Pulpo is doing great, I think he is full grown now. Lately he's been ignoring anything but krill and only if I impale it on a skewer and leave the skewer alone in the tank. He comes out of his den every day and walks around, trying to catch the last ghost shrimp, who has lasted an amazing long time, but as soon as I open the lid, he hides. So I leave the skewer wedged in the under lid cover (I made a Plexiglas lid that fits tight against the rim of the tank under the lights and hood) and walk away, then he will come out and circle the shrimp for a few seconds and attack it like it will swim away. I got him in October so he's been with me about 3 months, I hope that he still has a long time to live.

 

[RoFlores]

Well folks, it seems that life is leaving Pulpopus. He went in his den a week ago, so Friday I bought a few small hermits and a few snails to see if they would entice him out but I found them all alive the next morning. So on Sunday I lifted the rock that covers his den and he was still alive so i left him alone. Today he came out and I thought he was dead already, skin white and transparent and the arms are curled. I think I was lucky to have had him, he lived about 4 months with us and we got to enjoy him every day. It's just so sad to see him go in such a slow way.

 

[CaptFish]

So sorry to hear. its hard to lose them Four months is a really good run for an Aculeatus, average is only about two.

 

[RoFlores]

RIP Pulpopus

 

[DWhatley]

If you can, consider a final picture next to a measuring tape or ruler. It helps with sizing if we can get keepers to take a final photo like this but it is kind of hard on the emotions.

Were you successful in continuing to grow the small shrimp and did you try feeding them to your seahorses?

 

[SabrinaR]

RIP Pulpopus

Like Capt said, thats an impressively long time considering the track record for this species. Because you hadnt posted in a while I assumed that Pulpopus had passed and you took a break. I am really thrilled for you that he was such a blessing for so long. No one on TONMO has kept an A. aculeatus for longer than 2 months in at least 2-3 years. D is right though. Consider postmortem photos if you can.

 

[RoFlores]

Sorry, my wife disposed of him yesterday before any pictures where taken. She is more pragmatic than me about such things (is it dead yet?? ok then, flush...) I guess the arm lenght was about 8 to 9 inches and the mantle was about 1.5 inches. I now have a tank full of tiny shrimp, I have fed them to the seahorses and to my nano reef inhabitants and they all eat them really good. I think now that pulpo is gone, I will get a clump of sepia eggs and raise them in the tiny shrimp tank, last time I managed to hatch 6 out of 8 eggs but they all lived only about 1 week. I think they starved since I kept trying to feed them tiger pods, arctic pods and artemia nauplii. I tried to separate some gravid females and isolate them in individual cups (tiny shrimp) but they did not do so good, if left in a colony with no predators in the tank tough, the population explodes.

 

[Lmecher]

RIP Pulpopus

 

[tonmo]

RIP Pulpopus. I've tweeted this thread.