O. Vulgaris Layed Eggs

[Aquatect]

Yup, she laid a good sized clutch in the tank a while ago and almost all the babies have turned and have little black eyes. About how long is the time in the eggs and how long after hatching do they need to feed on pods?

Alex

 

[OctoMonkey]

Just to make sure... are you sure she is vulgaris? What size are the egs and how many???

Time in eggs is depending on water temperature.. but normally at least 6 weeks.

They should absorb their yolk after about a day or so of being free swimming, and then they will take things like newly hatched crab and shrimp larvae, but rearing vulgaris is a very tricky thing to do... if you scan through the artciles on ceph base you will find a couple of papers on the issue.

PS brine shrimp nauplii are no good at all and do you have any pics?

 

[Aquatect]

I plan on taking pics tomorow at work, assuming they havent hatched yet. Eggs are a little under a centimeter, milky white color. There were alot in the begining, but not as many now. Usually they lay like a million right? Haha.

Thanks for the help, pics tomorow maybe!

Alex

 

[OctoMonkey]

The eggs sound too large to be vulgaris, they normally lay 100s of thousands of small 3mm or so long eggs... large egg specie lay a smaller amount of larger egs from 8 - 12mmm long

good news as far as you are concerned as it means the babies will be easier to rear

 

[Aquatect]

As long as she stops eating them its good news.......

Also, on second note, turns out my boss was wrong... It isnt a vulgaris (you'll all say duh when you see the pic). Bimac maybe? I'm not to familiar with ceph species

 

[Aquatect]

here she is, a little glare from the tank and the criter keeper shes in right now.

 

[OctoMonkey]

sometims they get a bit over enthusiastic about cleaning them and knock them off

 

[cirri]

those critter carries are usually small. 1 gal or so, are we sure this is not a mecatoris. Awfully small for a bimac. or vul. to be hatching eggs so early.

 

[Aquatect]

Yea, well usually we sell them quicker than this one... Not to mention the fact that where else would we put her? We had a pygmy escape and we foudn him 3 tanks down and he was still in a critter keeper. with a rock over the top.

We also have rocks in there and stuff so she isnt scared and has a place to chill. It's an LFS after all......

 

[cirri]

The the point I was trying to make, is the species is not a bimac/ vulgaris or any larger species of ceph. I think Colin was headed down this path as well. I was just trying to rationalize the species you have eggs for. Which my guess is mecatoris.

As for the escape that is very logical with pgymys. I am sure you know that an octo can get through any hole its beak will fit through. An octo that small could easy get out of the grates or a lose lid if they were determined enough to.

 

[Aquatect]

Yea, about 20 peppermint shrimp later we found the pygmy... Grr...

 

[OctoMonkey]

it could be a small specimen of briareus... it does have that look to it???????

 

[cirri]

Yea, about 20 peppermint shrimp later we found the pygmy... Grr...

:lol: costly dinner for the little guy!

 

[AquaDancer]

Looks more like an O. briareus. They are large egg layers laying between approx. 150-250 eggs. IMHO the briareus look much like the vulgarius except a smaller version.

Remember hatching time all depends on temperature. The warmer the water the sooner they'll hatch.

Good luck!

 

[AquaDancer]

By the way, do you know where the Octopus came from? If it's the Caribbean I'd bet it's a briareus.

 

[DrChristianTroy]

O. briareus is OK

 

[donta42]

do you have any cool pics of it ? or the eggs ? sweet!