Wonderpus - Fontanelle

[Animal Mother]

I can hear the audio, but I can't see the video..

I hate Quicktime.

 

[Thales]

What version of quicktime are you running? Also, perhaps downloading the file would help.

 

[DWhatley]

Thales,

Does Fontanelle still dig in her muck? More than in the other substrate?

I look forward to each report (with trepidation until I read he is OK) and am convinced that sharing your info was the right way to go!

 

[Neogonodactylus]

I'm all for sharing information. There are several species of octopus that occasionally make it into the trade that are burrowers and they almost always are kept on clean sand or gravel which probably hastens there demise. If someone can figure out how to put together a substrate with sufficient texture to allow digging but which doesn't foul the filters, that would be great.

I still have some trouble with posting beautiful, exotic pictures and video of a Wunderpus looking fat and happy in an aquarium. Many of us recognize that the animal is being kept by an individual with a tremendous amount of experience and dedication to keeping cephalopods under the best possible conditions. However, it is the casual visitor to the site who has a brand new tank and a spare $500 to burn who worries me. These animals seduce me and I'm one of the more vocal persons saying don't collect them. I, and more importantly, some LFS owners know that there is a lucrative market for zebras fueled by their incredible looks and behavior. I wish now I had taken some photos of a Wunderpus with massive lesions on its mantle sprawled deflated in the corner rapidly pumping its mantle as it approached death. There should be pictures like these images that are burned in my brain up front and visible so that the typical buyer can know what they might expect for their money.

Roy

 

[Thales]

Thanks for posting Roy.
Do you think the pictures of wonderpus that were on the front page of TONMO would have the same effect on the casual visitor to the site? I think any image or video of these animals will have the same effect of the casual buyer.

I am happy though that the word seems to be getting to LFS that this is not a good animal for the casual buyer. The LFS I talked to wasn't all that happy about the one they had not selling yet.

I wish you had taken those photos too, and I plan to document what happens with Fontanelle - though hopefully he won't meet that kind of gruesome end.

I am going to be ordering a couple of different substrates to try in the new tank, I'll let you know how they go. I don't run 'filters' so I am not so worried about them becoming fouled.

Fontanelle is still digging, but I haven't been able to capture it on film again. I am going to sink a couple of tubes into the substrate and see if that make him happier. My thinking is that the tubes can have the substrate dug out of them, but will stop the hole from collapsing in on itself.
He does seem to be more comfortable with me and happier to hunt for for rather than stumble on it. When I tapped on the tank just now (like I always do before I feed) he perked up and went right after the shrimp.

 

[DWhatley]

Thales,

Please do give details about the substrates you try! Substrates are my bain! I hate them but find them necessary so the experiment in general will be of great interest. How do you expect to keep the different types separate? This part of your new experiment may have some general interest highlights. In particular, if one type does not build or show the brown algae, lining the visible "front" might give a boost to esthetics. If another doesn't seem to hold waste, that too would be interesting. Of course if all the muck, mucks up the tank Oh well

I have a wonderful brain coral in a smallish reef with shell substrate. I made a sandbox with PVC for it to protect its delicate underside but now she is out growing her 4" diameter pipe during the day so I am looking for another option to partition her flooring. Muck of some sort would probably work just as well (and perhaps give benefit) as sand but partitioning it and keeping the tank water clear are my quandry.

Roy,
Anyone who has spent a major part of his lifetime entranced by something most aquarist wish to eliminate and then helps to foster a whole new appreciation of the critter so that they SELL for an unbelievably high dollar figure definitely has impact on any aspect of this hobby .

Telling someone they "shouldn't have" something seems to have little or even reverse impact inspite of the reasons that follow the statement. HOWEVER, enumerating all the things necessary to even attempt keeping an animal like this may dissuade many who would ignore the "we don't know enough" and "they may be endangered" realities. So I guess I am asking that you keep posting information about how the required environment is different than most people can create in an aquarium but that some specialists may attempt - hopefully for the greater public so that not just the accomplished diver has the opportunity to view the wonders of our oceans and the need to take better care of them.

 

[Neogonodactylus]

I think I have a fair idea what is wrong with the substrates we are trying, but I don't know how to get around it - except possibly with time. We don't have the in fauna and flora that occurs in muck or many other soft sediments. What holds most of these substrates together is not a high cohesion of the sediment, but a matrix of worm tubes, roots and rhizomes that at times reminds me of a root bound potted plant. We rarely get dense colonies of various tube worms established in aquaria, but we can grow algae and green plants that stabilize the substrate with lots of roots, runners and rhizomes. I bet that if you had a mature tank with a slightly sandy, muck, burowing octopus would be able to dig reasonably normal burrows. Perhaps the way to go would be to establish a refugium (one of the hang on the side types might work) and plant it with a variety of algae or green plants. Down the road when the sediment is bound, you could place it inside larger mother tank and initially confine the octopus to that compartment in an attempt to get it started digging.

Roy

 

[Thales]

Thales,

Does Fontanelle still dig in her muck? More than in the other substrate?

I look forward to each report (with trepidation until I read he is OK) and am convinced that sharing your info was the right way to go!

Thanks! Every time I walk into the ceph room I have the trepidation!

For what its worth, the mineral mud settled out as quickly as new sand does, and it doesn't seem to fly around any more than sand does.

Heres a nice full body against the glass pose.

 

[DWhatley]

Roy,
Have you ever tested the nutrient, especially nitrate, in the muck environment. Seems it would be high vs the typical sand/rock bottom but perhaps the opposite is true in that there would be more anarobic bacteria below and if so, what effect would that suggest on the burowing animals (or dangers to them in a limited tank environment)?

 

[Thales]

I decided to try a couple of different buried tube homes. One is pvc, the other two are different filter intake strainers. One has slots and the other has holes. I think the pvc will feel too confining so the idea with the strainers is to allow the den to feel more 'open'.

We'll see!

 

[DWhatley]

Thales,
I hope you sanded down the rough edges. I had a pygmy (after acquiring Trapper) for only one week and we think its demise was due to digging and finding a piece of acrylic buried in the substrate (not sure how it got there and it was not exceptionally sharp). One eye became badly swollen and the plactic surfaced so the evidence was anicdotal but ...

Of note that may not be at all related but my son has a bare bottom tank as a grow out tank for two wrasse. Since one of them likes to bury we included a large bowl of fairly deep substrate but the wrasse doe not use its sandbox even though the substrate is the same as is in the fuge that was its original home when we was decided it was still too small to be put into the main tank. It buried frequently in the fuge. My thinking is that it does not recognized the containerized substrate as a place to bury.

 

[Thales]

Yep sanded!

I have had success with wrasse in bowls of sand. I guess some are different than others. For the occy, the sand isn't compartmentalized, but there are compartments in the sand. No interest shown yet.

However, tonight as I was removing the cubes and installing the 30 gallon (36x12x16) for the new Fontanelle home, I fed him. I tapped on the glass and dropped in a shrimp. Immediately, he came out to check it out, grabbed it with one arm, and then did this crazy umbrella like shrimp enveloping pose. He held the pose for about a minute. I was able to grab a camera and get one shot showing the pose - pic below.

As for moving him to the new tank, I have to order some mud for the substrate tomorrow. I have also installed a CPR overflow on the new tank so his favorite hiding spot is kind of in the new tank. I am however worried about moving him because he seems to be doing well in the current tank. Anyone have any opinions?

 

[DWhatley]

Thales,
Sorry . I will never intentionally (I do have two minor infractions but they were not intentional and are doing fine) try super exotics because I get too nervous just voyering experiences like this.

on the move. I have only had one kind of fish (discus) that did not take a move well and they did not even change tanks, just tank location. All my others have not been effected but lacked the intelligence of an octopus so your report on her behavior will be interesting. Will the new tank have a similar "view" of the outside world? Please let us know if the CPR is her immediate refuge.

 

[Thales]

I dropped in a shrimp tonight and he went right over and caught it, pulled it to his mouth. It twitched twice, and he let it go. It floated to the bottom dead. No bite marks that I can see. Did it die from shock or poison - I don't know.

Picking up the substrates tomorrow for the new tank. I am thinking of adding shredded plastic, like some people use for biological filtration in wet dry systems, in the substrate to possibly give them greater digging structural soundness.

D - The location of the new tank is right next to the old one, but at a 90 degree angle. The view will be the same/different. If I feel lucky, I might make the move tomorrow night as I octo proofed the tank today. We'll see.

 

[Jean]

Has anyone tried seagrass (eelgrass etc) we has some in one of our tanks and it did a great job stabilising the sediment for our burrowers (not octopus but marine ghost shrimps, Callianassa filholi and burrowing sea cucumbers Trochodotasp)

Just an idea!

J