Sebastian - O'NOTSUREWHAT......

corw314

Colossal Squid
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After all these years of anticipating many octopuses' arrival, I still get a thrill when I seen the fedx email, my shipment has been picked up. This has to be the most stressful time for many who await the arrival of a new octopus. I told work I will be coming in late and you can be sure I will be tracking his progress all through the night. My hope is he will arrive at 9 am at the fedx location 5 minutes from my home, so I can go pick him up and start the acclimation process. Tank is ready. I did a 40% water change, a few days ago. Changed all carbon. I asked them to include a dozen or so hermit crabs in the shipment, so we should be good to go. Will keep you posted. I'm so excited to see what arrives. The name was picked a few weeks ago....Keeping :fingerscrossed: for a safe arrival!!!
 
Saltwaterfish.com - Florida - I was up at 3am checking status. He was in Tennessee....Sebastian arrived in Newark, NJ about 15 minutes ago!!!! :smile:
 
Sebastian arrived at the Fedx location at 8:34 this morning and I picked him up at 9:10am. We dripped for an hour. I see an attitude already as he was quite mad once I started dripping. Tried to climb out of the container, and then was swimming from side to side. His mantle is 1/2 an inch. I was worried about putting him into the 70 gallon because of his tiny size I thought I would never see him and once I released him into the tank he found a piece of coral in the middle and disappeared into it. About 10 minutes ago, I saw legs flailing out the side of the coral and he did venture out, totally black, to peak at me and then disappeared again so he's curious which is really good. I was please with the shipping yet again and they also included 2 dozen tiny hermit crabs which they used my points for. So now the question is, what is he? He's tiny. He reminds me of Barnacle Bill but I see in the thread, he was never identified as O'Mercatis.
 
I would guess dwarf but not sold on merc. There are a couple of Pacific dwarfs (if he really IS from the Pacific) that I have never seen but that resemble mercs in photos. Looking only at photos of bimacs, I have often thought it would be hard to tell the difference between a bimac and a hummelincki but now that I have my first bimac, in real life they are quite different. I suspect this is true of the Atlantic vs Pacific dwarfs as well.
 
Well....He is really cute but this is Day 3 and not an arm/eye/anything in sight other than the serpent starfish has taken up residence under the piece of coral I spotted him in the first night. Keeping fingers crossed....
 
Nothing new to report. No sightings whatsoever.....I have checked in the wee hours of the morning....randomly during the day....Did inspect the large clump of barnacles manually....Only clue I have he may be still with me is the serpent star keeps changing position. I think the hermits are disappearing but am not positive. Still keeping :fingerscrossed:
 
Still no sighting. I went collecting at our local beach on Sunday and caught 25 hermit crabs and a couple mud snails. They eat red algae! I am amazed at how much has been eaten since Sunday night. Still no sighting at all. I'm hoping that being most of the original hermits that arrived with him, have disappeared, that Sebastian is still with us. Hopefully at some point I will sight an eye or an arm. Still keeping:fingerscrossed:.....
 
If his mantle was only 1/2 inch, it may be that he is very young and I have noted that it seems they need to be about 5 months old before they start to show themselves.

I am wondering if he is O.joubini. Reviewing your acclimation pictures and comparing them to Little Bit's, there is a lot of similarity (I particularly remember seeing the white arm stripes, initally making me think she was a different species). That would make him Caribbean and not Pacific (as far as I know) but Little Bit has quite a range of colors, including an all white with dark brown around the eyes that could easily be mistaken for a young O.briareus except for the very brown sucker trim that forms a distinct line along the arms. Then there is her a very orange red, deep brown and a mottling of all the colors. She is the most difficult octo I have kept to see out in the open. We decided about two weeks ago that she hit 5 months because almost over night she choose to den where we can see her most of the time. Prior to that she lived inside the rock and would not show more than eyeballs and arms (if anything at all). Little Bit eats very well so the missing crabs would parallel her appetite.
 
Sebastian's mantle was very tiny, and he was packed in a very small plastic bag and had I found my purple critter pen, (which was located filled with crickets in sons bedroom closet....:roll:) I would have set him up in that so I could have monitored his progress more closely......... And.........I found crab remains......:smile::fingerscrossed:
 
I added over 25 hermits a week or so ago and this morning can only count 7....and I spy another crab leg....:mrgreen: Ya know this really can be a potential "I Spy" book....My son did a flashlight search for almost an hour the other day.....I think I will do some internal cleaning of algae tonight to see if that entices him to show at least an eye....keeping :fingerscrossed:
 

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