• 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.

Wunderpuss (possible Mimic)

Mike Bauer;176119 said:
Sorry, I don't normally get involved in octopus affairs. I have only kept one for a few months and know very little on how to keep them. When I found a mimic and was thinking of purchasing it, I posted and asked you. you responded back rudely and provided a link, which I read and found most interesting.

Mike,

I think you are taking a fast reply with a link as rudeness. Its isn't meant to be rude, it is ment to get you to the information you are asking for. Please understand that a lot of us have gone to a great deal of time and effort to provide information on husbandry in an easy to access manner and referring people asking 'newbie' questions to those articles is the easiest way to get people information.

I have been looking them up from time to time on drve web sites and other places to see how rare they are. I choose not to get one because I lack the skill and resources to try to get them to live and breed in captivity. Kind of like what you did for the dwarf cuttlefish, they were rare once too. I do not spend all day reading every back post you or anyone else has ever written over the last 6 years. Sorry even I don't have that kind of time on my hand while job hunting.
I understand that, but at the same time I think that when people choose to bring an exotic animal into their homes they owe it to the animals to do research on how to keep the animal alive before they choose to bring it home. A simple search on tonmo and and hour or two of reading (or reading links provided) usually answers 95% of the questions people usually ask. Please understand that none of the staff here is paid and that answering questions that could be answered with a little research gets tiresome quickly. We all want to help, but spoonfeeding people information that is already easily accessible isn't fun, and usually isn't productive.

I have spent more time reading on this site the last few month (because I am trying to get a pair of dwarf cuttlefish to live and breed) than I have in the last 6 years.

Fantastic!
I would hope though that you would try not to represent yourself as a expert. There is a thread on Reef Central that you started that gives a recipe for keeping S. bandensis, however, that recipe hasn't really worked for you, so its a little difficult for some of us to try not to ask you to be more 'responsible' in the advice you give.

I wonder if this octopus is rare in it's home land or only because they don't live here in the US. Do the eat them there like we do here with ours? I would suggest contacting the person who discovered them and is studying them to ask his option on the matter.

This is some of the information that is easy to find.
We don't know if they are rare in the wild, but we suspect they are. They are not eaten.
I am not sure which link you are talking about.

No. I did not purchase it from a LFS and this happened several years ago. It doesn't really matter how you got it, now does it.

Actually it does matter a great deal how I got it and anyone gets them. There is a big difference getting the animal from an importer when that animal was included in the shipment as filler and getting the animal that ordered it from the LFS. There is really no way to simplify the chain of custody and how animals are treated thought it and how different people fell about all of that.


The fact is you supported it's remove from it's home in the ocean by getting it and keeping it. Publishing about doing so doesn't really help support the cause either.

I think you are trying to simplify a very complex issue. I am unsure what cause you are referring to how I want to support it or not support it. Most of my thoughts about this can be found in any of the disclaimers regarding exotic cephs that I include in most exotic threads and articles.
Getting an animal in the middle of the chain of custody is different than getting them at the end.


Divers take nice photos and share but leave the thing behind to live a survival of the fittest life.

Not necessarily and again, I think to are trying to simplify something that is complex. I have seen a group of tourist divers surround cephs and take flash photos of them for 20- 30 minutes. The ceph is prevented from getting away from them and is often repeatedly dug out of the sand. Then there is the gas and oil leaked into the ocean from the boat that got the divers to the dive site, the problem of siltation for the building of the dive resort, the problem of removal of sewage, and more.
Please note that I don't necessarily have an opinion if this is good or bad - its too complicated a situation to make it that simple.

Researcher on the other hand will catch and kill things to document that they are rare or exist. Funny how that works isn't it.:read:

Mark Norman (marine biologist)
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Mark Douglas Norman is a marine biologist living in southern Australia where he works through the University of Melbourne and Museum Victoria.[1] For over a decade, Norman has been working exclusively with cephalopods and he is one of the leading scientists in the field, having discovered over 150 new species of octopuses. The best known of these is probably the Mimic Octopus.[2]

Mark Norman is the author of Cephalopods: A World Guide, a book published in 2000 containing over 800 colour photographs of cephalopods in their natural habitat.[3]

I am not sure what you are getting at. Science works by documentation, and sometimes that includes sacrificing specimens to further knowledge. Without the science we wouldn't know bubkis about these animals and we may not even know that they are out there. Sometimes science does not sacrifice animals, but instead figures out how to keep them alive.
And if you are really unhappy with research and its effect on wild animal populations, I think you should have a huge problem supporting the saltwater aquarium hobby, and people getting animals and killing them in home tanks because they didn't take the time to understand their needs before bringing them home - never mind the amount of animals killed all along the chain of custody - all so the home aquarist can keep an animal in their living room.

Its important to note that I write all this without heat or anger. For me, this is just a cool discussion. Right now I am on vacation, sitting on the veranda at a hotel in the middle of the Costa Rican cloud forrest in between hikes to photograph cool animals with my family. :biggrin2:
 
Mike Bauer;176154 said:
All, also note Thales is a good person who has done lots of great work. He deserves a great deal of respect for all he has done to help out the researchers and pet owners as well. So don't get me wrong. He is doing great thing to help everyone out he just need to work on being nicer to his public and maybe remember he started out just like the rest of us. Hell it is hard enough as it is to get anything these days like cuttlefish so sharing your information and helping the public aquarium deserves much thanks. Good luck with your newest project :cuttle:.

Thanks Mike. Please also understand that text is a two way street and it is very easy to to take the most benign comment as aggressive. In a discussion such as the ones that have been happening recently on TONMO it is even easier. It is never my intent to be rude to anyone. I try to be straightforward and understand that some may take that as 'not being nice'. :biggrin2:
 
Grey;176080 said:
I visited the octopus today. The LFS is 45 miles from my house so I made sure to find the differences to ID this specimen. I'm quite sure it is in fact Thaumoctopus mimicus. I was told the specimen is approximately 4-6 months old. I took the time to study it for a little while and it looks to be in good health and it is eating emerald crabs. The LFS owner still calls it a Ribbon octopus, I wasn't able to find such an animal online.

I am planning to have the LFS hold this animal for 3 weeks then I'm going to put it in my reef tank until its home is properly cycled. Not to worry either folks all the fish and stinging corals will be moved.

If Tonmo doesn't mind I would like to start a thread. I plan to post photos, captive behavior, my experiences, and hopefully husbandry tips.


Thanks Grey, this is what the exotics forum is for.

Do you know how they know it is 4-6 months old? I would also like to know which store it is - if you are not comfortable with that being public, please PM me. Part of my job is keeping up on this stuff and I know a lot of store owners around the country and talking with them about this stuff gives us more data.

Not many people have kept these guys. Jay Hemdal, the author of the AA article already linked in this thread, had a very easy time of it. Other equally accomplished aquarists have had no success whatsoever.

I would say substrate is important. When I have seen these animals in the field, they are in 'muck'. Carib Sea mineral mud seems to be a decent substitute.

Finally, don't let any of the side discussion on ethics here get you down. I went through the same kind of thing when I started with cephs and it helped to make me a better aquarist. And remember, that one of the reasons we on TONMO recommend against these animals in general is because just a few years ago it was cool for people who had no idea what they were doing to buy one as a status symbol. We would hate for that to become the norm again.

Thanks, and please do let us know how it goes.
 
I have never claimed to be an expert with dwarf cuttlefish. I have had good luck with reef tanks and larger cuttlefish, just can't seem to get them anymore. But again, Thanks for all the hard work that you have done.

Have a nice vacation! Try to get some diving in if possible.

Mike
 
Thales;176167 said:
Thanks Grey, this is what the exotics forum is for.

Do you know how they know it is 4-6 months old? I would also like to know which store it is - if you are not comfortable with that being public, please PM me. Part of my job is keeping up on this stuff and I know a lot of store owners around the country and talking with them about this stuff gives us more data.

Not many people have kept these guys. Jay Hemdal, the author of the AA article already linked in this thread, had a very easy time of it. Other equally accomplished aquarists have had no success whatsoever.

I would say substrate is important. When I have seen these animals in the field, they are in 'muck'. Carib Sea mineral mud seems to be a decent substitute.

Finally, don't let any of the side discussion on ethics here get you down. I went through the same kind of thing when I started with cephs and it helped to make me a better aquarist. And remember, that one of the reasons we on TONMO recommend against these animals in general is because just a few years ago it was cool for people who had no idea what they were doing to buy one as a status symbol. We would hate for that to become the norm again.

Thanks, and please do let us know how it goes.

He doesn't know. This owner has alot of ceph keeping experience just from the amount of them he keeps "in stock" also talking with him over the years I can tell. About 20" are what you are going to see one of these animals get. I would say his tentacles would be 8" from tip to tip, you could figure 2.5 years would be a very long life in the wild so my guess he is very close.
Id prefer not to mention names here.
 
Sorry that was an error... 1.5 years. Now there was no info saying that they live any longer than 1 year. But then again there is very little information on these animals at all. I just kinda threw that out there as a number that is why I said VERY long life.
 
Three years would be for GPO, most octopus have a one year lifespan, but you are right about insufficient data being present. Because of predation, most octopus obviously don't make it past one week, but that's a different story.
 

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