[Octopus Eggs]: Trapper's Babies - Tank Raised Mercatoris

[DWhatley]

Monty,
Great question but I wish you had asked it about 6 months ago. It never occurred to me to measure them on a regular basis and sadly, I could have since these two are out on the glass nightly. My gut feel is that they have started shrinking in total mass but arm length seems relatively stagnent. The mantle is hard to judge. One night it may appear very small (relative to "normal" and to each other) but as they swim, the mantle gets fuller and they look "normal" again to me. I will try to start taking some measurements to at least give a proper recording of their size at one year. I can say that none of them ever reached the size of Trapper. A rough guess would be 2/3 her size. The males are all about the same size and Miss Broody appeared slightly larger the very few times I saw her out of her den.

 

[DWhatley]

Sibling rivalry among octopuses! I love it!!!!

Actually, I see "Sibbling rivalry" very often but it is usually Sisty that has to horn in if he sees Medusa getting food or even just attention. I offer food first to Sisty because he will swim over and attack Dusa if I feed in reverse. If they are together, I will squirt Cyclop-eeze in opposite directions (Sisty's side first) to discourage a food fight. Fortunately their fighting and attacks have never resulted in harm (no even inking or panic) to either one. Initially I would hold my breath everytime they appeared aggressive but I have accepted the behavior as harmless - I hope aging will not change the outcome.

Measured Sisty and Dusa against the glass and came up with a 1 to 1.5 inch mantle (tip of mantle to top of eyes) and 2.5" - 3" arms. Both sets of measurements (quite a difference in percentage) were taken in various positions but neither set was of extreme stretching.

 

[DWhatley]

Lost of color

I am afraid these may be some of the last pictures of Sisturus. Like his mother, he has lost the ability to change color and is now white all the time. Medusa does not pattern fully but still shows the deep red coloration when in the rockwork but Sisty is white all the time and has stopped eating anything but Cyclop-eeze. He seems to be hungry all the time, is still fiesty with Dusa and can hold his own on the tank wall so I am crossing my fingers that he will live for another week and see his birthday.

 

[DWhatley]

HideNSeek continues to be very recluse and I am not 100 percent sure if I am seeing HideNSeek or MIA as one has vanished. The remaining adult in the 45 visits HideNSeek's hang outs but acts more like MIA. I have one remaining grandchild of Trapper. She stays in her shell all the time but continues to grow on the shrimp and Cyclop-eeze but I have never seen her wander the net. The escapee male has not been seen since the day after I returned him to the net and has been missing for over a week so I fear he did not survive the tank even though there is food and little (except possibly his father) to hurt him.

If the little girl (just a guess from the brooding behavior) survives, she will live in Sisty and Medusa's tank after they leave. The larger tank hopes to house one of JoeFish's briarius if I can raise one to Kalypso's size. I have ordered a langerie net to cover the current breeder supports because it has a zipper (and there are holes in my current netting as well as no top). I am not sure if the netting will be fine enough at shipping time and may have to come up with an alternate for a few weeks so any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[DWhatley]

Good News and Not so good news

The little escapee Merc has not been visible for well over a week and I should have given up on him some time ago but I just didn't want to believe HideNSeek ate him or that he starved to death so I have been looking at varying times every night. TONIGHT I spotted him! I failed to catch him and return him to the net but he seems to be doing OK. I am not sure if he is just eating the Cyclop-eeze that I feed HideNSeek and the other surviving juvenile or if the small pods I put in last week (trying to get a population started for JoeFish's Briarius) have been part of his meals.

Unfortunately, Sisty is now coming out during the day - not just early but during real daytime. He seems to be going very much like Trapper but still has arm strength so I am hoping he has a little time yet. Monday will be the one year mark for the first hatchling. He was also showing (for the first time) a true cork-screw with his arm tips (not the typical feeding movement). I took a picture today but my printer's USB link has started acting up and the sun is lighting the sky (and I have not yet gone to bed - see why I keep Merc ) so I will see if there is a viable image tomorrow.

 

[DWhatley]

Sisturus B'day picture

This is probably my best picture of Sisty, unfortunately, it was taken to show the cork screw that he has acquired in his arms and his all white coloration. It does a good job at displaying his enlarged suckers. If you enlarge it you can see the double enlargements that he grew early on. He still comes to the front of the tank every night and is active. He has started to wait until dark now (after almost a month of coming out when we feed Octane) but he stays completely white even in the live rock.

Medusa has been very angry the last couple of days and has been quite red. No apparent reason and I do pretty heavy water changes weekly since they have been getting old. I fed them late yesterday and when I tried to give him a shirmp he attacked my hand and would not let go. He started squirting (it appeared to be more like spitting from the beak area rather than the siphon but I am not 100 percent sure) but refused to release my hand. I picked him up a full 5 inches out of the tank and he still did not want to let go. I have not had the Mercs to do this since they were dime sized. I guess even octos get crotchity in their old age. However, tonight he seemed back to normal.

HideNSeek has started coming back to the barnacle condo regularly again and has been feeding more normally (he would disappear for a couple of days at time and hide if he saw me after MIA disappeared). I included a very poor picture but I don't know that he has any others posted in the journal

My little female was out of her shell around 11:00 tonight. This is the first time I have seen her completely away from her den. I thought about trying a picture but she spooked (ie inked) when I moved too quickly so I opted not to try since a flash would have been required. Surprisingly she did not return to her shell and I got a good look at her.

The little male (sex designations are personality suggestions only) is still loose in the main tank and I have not seen him for a day but I did put a mini barnacle condo close to where he had been hiding so I hope he will choose to take up residence.

 

[DWhatley]

5 month photo of Trapper's grand child

I found Wiley's newest hang out. He was not pleased with the discovery but at least I got a photo as he went looking for an undiscovered den

 

[gholland]

Great pics D!

So the little runaway finally has a name eh? What about the less rebellious one?

Do you have thoughts of trying to breed another generation if it turns out that you really do have a male and female? And do you remember what age the enlarged suckers started showing on the males?

We dread seeing that corkscrew behavior in Varys, but we know it is coming...

 

[DWhatley]

Greg,

I plan to put Wiley and the "yet to be named but I think is a female" octo together in Sisty and Medusa's tank. I would prefer that Wiley stay put in the net so that I don't have to worry about reintroducing them but I think I am going to be lucky to catch him when it is time for the transfer. If the lack of success with this brood was due to in breeding, then a mating will not likely produce viable young. However, Colin mentioned that cuttle research did not have inbreeding problems for many more generations so we will see what nature decides.

I think I noticed Sisty's suckers when I put him in the larger tank (5 months) but Medusa's did not start showing for at least a month and maybe two later. If you blow up the above pictures (double click then click again) you will notice Wiley's third right arm is curled upwards, unlike the other six arms that are visable - I am wondering where the eighth is. I did not see this before but your question "made me look" . He is 5 months old.

Determining a female is harder. Both Miss Broody and Medusa stayed in dens for a long time where MIA, HideNSeek and Sisturus altered their sleeping quarters frequently and move about the tank nightly. There is a log picture of Sisty trying to mate with Medusa somewhere around the time Miss Broody and HideNSeek mated. The intraction between Medusa and Sisty changed when Medusa matured.

I am concerned about Medusa becoming stressed when Sisty is no longer in the tank since they have been together since birth. Physically, you would not guess that they are the same age and Medusa can still fully pattern but his personality has changed greatly in the last couple of days. He even tried to climb out of the tank tonight and successfully climbed almost totally out of the water. If both octos acted this way I would have done an immediate water change (in spite of the fact that I changed out the usual 5 gallons on Sunday) but I finally realized I had the overhead lights still on (they are usually off at 9:00 ish) at 12:30. Once I turned off the lights he return to his normal night white color and stopped the wall climbing.

 

[DWhatley]

I thought we lost Wiley as I had not seen him since the photograph two weeks ago but last night he was looking for food toward the front of the tank. I still could not catch him and he disappeared once more into the LR when I tried but at least he is alive and eating. The "female" does not leave her den much and it is hard to tell if she is eating (other than the fact that she is alive at 5.5 month old). I have only seen her out hunting once and she rejects anything of any size I try to hand feed her (frozen Mysis, dead shore shrimp, snails). I keep live shrimp in her net and they either escape to the tank or she catches them (I have seen her ignore them or push them away). I hope Paul can get me some really small crabs next order now that it is spring. I had expected to move both babies to the 15 gallon by now but the current residence are still, unexpectedly coming out and feeding nightly and I am not sure how they would accept the food sized babies.

 

[gholland]

How big are the babies at this stage D? You make it sound as if they are still awfully small...

 

[DWhatley]

Trapper's young and now these seem to get smaller by the generation (Trapper was especially large and thought to be something other than a dwarf when she was sent). I also think that these don't eat as well as they should (feeding habit makes a big difference in size according to posts on our forum and a direct response from Crissy (Muctopus)). I THINK the "female" is as large as Wiley so moving about the tank does not seem to impact growth but I noticed that my captive raised ones grew more rapidly after being freed to their respective tanks (this may be a function of age and not environment). The tank size, however, did not seem to have an impact as all 5 grew to about the same size (two in a 15 gallon an three in a 45) and could not be differentiated by size alone. My guess is that both Grandchildren are about an inch to an inch and a quarter in total length, Mantle "top" to tip of arm with arms straight. I am inclined to believe that the reason the Mercs seem to have a "shorter" life span in an aquarium is because they stay so small for so long and only achieve wild collectable size as mature adults. It will be very intresting to compare the size of Varys young at 5 months with my brood and compare again if you have captive bred.

 

[DWhatley]

Sisty Caught a crab

I was not sure if Sisty still had enough strength to catch crabs (I have seen Medusa catch them) but tonight he would have eaten two if his web was not full of the first (at least I think the second got away, it disappeared when I went for the camera ). Dusa had to come check out the commotion but went away empty beaked.

 

[Colin]

Hi D

i am bit behind with keeping up with trappers babies... can you do a quick summary? It might help others keep track too...

How many mercatoris did you start with and how many have you had in total now? Perhaps we need an octo family tree? LOL

keep it up
C

 

[DWhatley]

Colin,
Encapsulating the two threads:

Trapper was my first octopus. She was supposed to be something other than a dwarf and was caught in thirty feet of water in a crab trap rather than in a normal Merc habitat (shallow reef) in the Florida keys. After Trapper's arrival (and before knowing she was a Mercatoris) I ordered a dwarf for a different tank. This one died within two weeks. I tried a second with the exact same result. I was never sure if the two known dwarfs were simply at the end of their lives when I acquired them or if there was something wrong in the aquarium (I have not used that aquarium since).

Trapper was very shy and elusive for 3 months and I sat nightly in front of her tank just trying to catch a glimpse of her. Somewhere close to the three month mark, I put a barnacle shell in the front of the tank and she immediately took it as a den and started brooding. The barnacle gave me the opportunity to see and feed her nightly and she eventually acknowledged my existence and would reach out an arm to contact my finger (on the outside of the tank) each night.

I watched the tank nightly during the whole month and saw four of the six babies be expelled from the den over a 5 day period. I captured all six and kept them in the tank in a breeder net. One of the young climbed the net and died within an inch of the water. I purchased a larger net that could be kept at the water line and the other 5 (4 male and one female) survived to adulthood. Trapper continued to eat and lived almost 12 weeks beyond the first baby hatching. The bodies of both the baby and Trapper went to young people. One at the request of a parent for information to assist his son's research paper and the other to a very young man who already has a stong interest in cephalopods.

At 5 months (sex was still unknown at the time) a pair that had lived continuously in one set of barnacles were place in a 15 gallon tank with hopes that they would be a breeding couple. The other three were freed to the 45 gallon that their mother inhabited alone. One of these three turned out to be female and mated with one of the males. Miss Broody had many more young than her mother but I was working by this time (not so while watching Trapper) and could not observe the hatching. I am unsure if the captured young escaped the breeding nets (there were small holes in them that I unsuccessfully blocked when discovered) or if she averaged 5 a night for the known 10 nights of hatching. I only found 4 dead and all but two of the brood simply vanished. I don't believe they ate each other but there is a possibility that the male adults may have been invading the nets (based upon finding one of the adults - not the father - inside one of the nets after most of the young disappeared).

Miss Broody and HideNSeek mated a second time (photos in the thread) and shortly there after, she left her original brooding barnacle (the same one her mother chose) and was never seen again (there would not have been a second set of eggs to fertalize but I believe she baracaded herself in a new den and starved). I witnessed both matings and neither was the violent pouncing that Roy had described. Both were with the same male. Not long after Miss Broody's disappearance the second Male disappeared, neither body was found.

Two of the tank bred Mercs still survive. One that I think is female rarely leaves her shell (very similar to her mother's behavior) and the second will not stay in the net and is loose and rarely seen in the tank. The father has always been shy but still comes out for feeding most nights and can still catch fiddler crabs.

The two in the 15 gallon have been my pride and joy. They come out every night to be fed and one is not at all shy (the other has taken Sisturus' lead for food but is far more afraid of humans). All three males have survived their birthday but are beginning to show their age. Sisty will not be with me much longer, possibly finalizing his story tonight and I will post a second installment on those events.