• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

So I received an octopus and her eggs today....

Recently I have purchased an octopus and within 2 weeks of purchasing the octo she laid eggs. So far she has stayed in her den, except when I tempted her with a live crawfish ( i took the claws off first). This seems to be the only food that I can get her to eat. I assume she ate it because the crawfish was large enough to pose a threat to her eggs, so by eating it she eliminated the threat and got a good meal.Her eggs are very small and are newly laid. I myself am also going to try to take care of them and raise them. But my main concern is to keep the octo alive.
 
:welcome: Rthkassey!

Cool, I think not.... I am sorry to hear your octo was so well advanced by the time your LFS sold it to you; this is still a commonplace problem with non-captive bred species. Feeding a saltwater species fresh water prey items will not help her salt balance, the diet is unsustainable, I fear. With regards to the eggs; as has been stated before, for large egg species, limited success is attainable by very experienced keepers. For small egg species, I would advise you to steer clear of imminent frustration. My apologies if I sound a bit harsh here, but I truly wish you all the best with the hobby, and it seems this one got off to a bad start. :sad:

Please, prove me wrong :wink:
 
Hi guys,

I'm so sorry I haven't checked in! A friend was in a serious car accident and the time at the hospital just made all this fly by. I did get a picture of the eggs on 8/21 for a development update.

normal_octoeggs821.jpg


octoeggs821b.jpg


They hatched on 8/24 and I split the hatchlings between two of my friends that were used to raising tiny fry (one is working on raising clown fish). Here's a picture Margie took with her microscope (yeah, to give you an idea just how small they are).

normal_Aug2408148.jpg


None of the fry have survived as of today, as far as they could tell. We all knew it probably wouldn't be successful and I'm so sorry I wasn't able to take more development pictures, but I guess sometimes doodoo occurs. I'm going to contact two of my suppliers and see if I can get them to be more specific with the descriptions of octos I'll have available to try next time. They have had cuttlefish eggs available a couple times. Maybe when things slow down around here I'll be a glutton for punishment and try them instead :wink:.

Thank you again for all of your help. I'll definitely be lurking around and learning. I intend to keep an octo in the shop, just as a mascot, the very next time I see tank raised specimens on a list.

Barbie
 
Wow, great pictures, but sorry to hear of the ultimate fate of your attempt :sad:

Still; we live, we learn! Hope to hear from you in the future on further attempts.
 
Sorry to hear about the outcome, and your friend's accident (:fingerscrossed: for a good, fast recovery!), but you put in a good effort on a very difficult task. Cuttlefish eggs have a much, much higher success rate, particularly wild ones (for some reason, Sepia bandensis in captivity seem to have trouble producing viable offspring after 2 or 3 generations. But that's based on relatively few data points.)
 
For reference, would you say some lived 5 days? Tony, can we have a separate thread for small egg attempts to try to get a collection of info?
 
Um, anyone who can post can start a thread... the only question is whether it should be in "octopus care" or "physiology & biology," I guess...
 
Monty,
Perhaps my fellow Hive... er, Great Mind simply mis-spoke :wink: and was thinking more along the lines of a separate forum specifically dedicated to ceph aquaculture: breeding, hatching, and rearing of paralarval cephalopods (or all cephs)? Then, anyone who can post would be able to create individual threads on how to introduce males and females, specialized tank design, and paralarval food selection. The hardest part would still be getting the "failures" documented.
 

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