Rescued an octopus from an Asian Food Market today

[davelin315]

Stopped into an Asian Food Market today and was saddened to see a bunch of octopuses in a tank, all dead with the exception of this one and possibly another one, but this one was moving around and looking very sad to be in there... it's different than buying a "don't encourage them" type of thing from a local fish store, as this is a food source and they're going to bring them in regardless... anyway, I couldn't help myself. It's currently in a 10 gallon tank as that's the best I could throw together with cold water and an ice probe to keep it cool until I figure out what it is (tank is woefully small for it, it's arms stretch across the tank and can curl up the wall while it's in the corner). My guess is that it's from the West Coast as it was in with abalone and I think that they are collected in California waters, but no idea. Here are some pictures that I sent to the National Zoo to get an ID from a friend there in the Invert House. The ones where it's just sitting there are from when the lights were on, the ones where it's stretched out are from when it was dark and I turned on the lights.

 

[davelin315]

The female died today... as I said before, I didn't think this one was necessarily a good candidate and neither was the male, but I wanted to try it. I will think about trying it one more time, but I will certainly wait until I find a truly "healthy" specimen that comes in.

 

[Nancy]

well, it must be hard seeing them die, but it seems like a good attempt you're making. Maybe getting a good one is the key.

Nancy

 

[DWhatley]

I will be so disappointed if you give up. Hopefully you will go with one from an LFS/on-line purchase after setting everything up if you find that this doesn't work. There is the possibility that the method of shipping eliminates the possibility but I keep hoping you succeed.

 

[davelin315]

I definitely want to get another octopus, it's just trying to figure out if this is the right way to go or if I should go with a "pet" octopus instead of a food one... I really had some success with the two I bought time before last, just messed up with the acclimation portion which ended up killing them. I wish I could find a specimen that's as healthy as those and then I'd be in for sure with another round.

 

[L8 2 RISE]

.. Today's Thursday ! Try it! Are you getting these from the Asian Market near Lowes? That's the only one I know of around here.

 

[davelin315]

No, the one by the corner of 29 and 66. I didn't try it last night because I want to give the tank time to recover again from having 2 octopuses die in it recently and also had a child ER visit last night again. I'll check it out over break but want to do some checks on the tank as well prior to that. I've lost some of the snails recently and not sure if that's because they are starving to death since there's no algae in the tank or if it has something to do with the dead octopuses.

 

[DWhatley]

I hope the ER visit was well resolved. We had had a few members spending the night with their kids there in the last couple of years.

 

[davelin315]

Thanks, we're regular customers at the ER. When you've got 4 who are 9 and under you end up there a lot!

 

[davelin315]

Well, went back today to get another one. The guy there has become very friendly with me as we spoke of what I was trying to do last time. He and I chose the one that looked the healthiest and then he set it out for me so we could see how responsive it was. It really struggled to get away from him but I'm still not sure if this one will live or not, but it was worth a shot. I hung the bag in the tank and poked a few holes in it and then let the octopus out after a couple of hours of floating. It immediately shot to the bottom and climbed into the rocks. Not sure of the condition of its arms, but it's a lot livelier than the last two I got (I did opt to get just one). The guy at the store showed me what the ones they have look like after a week (dead!). We talked about what to do to get them to survive and I think that I'll ask him next time to give me a call and pick the healthiest one out and keep it separate for me if this one does not survive.

 

[CaptFish]

 

[DWhatley]

I was afraid you had given up and would not blame you if you did as you have really done a lot to try to make this experiment work. I love it when someone takes an interest in keeping them as live animals (most people just give kind of a blank stare and I wonder if they even know what an octopus is, others just mention calamari and I have to explain that octopuses are not normally used in the food dish) . If this one survives, it still will have a limited life span so keeping the friendly connection could turn out quite interesting.

 

[Nancy]

Like D, I'm glad to hear that you're continuing the experiment. I think you will eventually succeed.

Nancy

 

[sulley]

good luck

 

[davelin315]

Interesting twist tonight as it gave conflicting signs of overall health. I do think that it's arms are curling, but it also inked 3x when I disturbed it while trying to feed it tonight. Combination of the good and the bad - it had enough left in the tank from shipping to still have ink, but it has signs of poor health... we'll see where this leads to this time around. Unfortunately, it did not eat...

 

[DWhatley]

Eating is probably the best universal sign followed by prolonged labored respiration rate. Curled arms and how they are curled varies. When sleeping, Puddles (macropus and his name comes from this appearance) keeps his arms curled in would would be considered an ill health posture for any other octopus and I no longer look at that aspect for signs of health where I would look for corkscrew dangling but not upward curling in a briareus but not expect to see it in a hummelincki (IME).