Baby update
So far so good, I think
I still have no idea how many babies I have or ever had in the nets. I still have a couple loose in the tank and can usually see them sometime after 1:00 AM. I only KNOW about two deaths. One that had lived in the red tube (and may have died many days before I realized it) of unknow cause and one I found in the overflow filter sponge (I rescued two from the sponge but this one managed to get below the exposed part at the top).
I put the octo from the red tube in a dish of saltwater and after two days, it looked no different than when I found it so I am not sure how long ago it died. I have not found other dead ones but have added a couple of snails to the nets for clean-up and would expect they would remove any remains before I would see them.
It appears that the little guys are eating the small shrimp I put in the nets as the shrimp disappear and I found a shrimp head in one net tonight. This group seems more recluse than their parents but it may be I just don't remember how hard it was to find them at this stage
. They are still very, very small and well camoflaged in the white netting and grid.
All five adults are still doing well. All the males now spend at least some of their wake time near the top of the tank with occassional experimentations with their arms quickly out of the water (not long enough to break the water coverage though). Sisty started doing this several months ago but the others do it far less often and did not start until this month. During the day, they all remain hidden.
Mia has a new "big" octo trick that he has employed twice. He has squited water at me when I have annoyed but not frightened him. The spray does not get me wet but it does come about 4 inches above the tank.
Miss Broody has survived her first month post-hatching and is still taking a shrimp nightly and feeds on the Cyclop-eeze. She will drop her doorway after I start feeding the tank but I have only seen her leave her den once and that was a quick stretch without losing contact with the shell. I have noticed that she breathes very heavily during feeding and she seems to have some difficulty extracting the shrimp from the large pipette I use. She is conserably larger than any of the four males and I wonder if this is a distinct difference in the sexes (this is the first time I have seen her full body since she started brooding her eggs).