Worried About New Octopuses

just for interest........
2 new videos at tonmo. I managed to make the pic size bigger and easier to see this time............. em, er thats it.....
 
Dooh, I forgot to mention this. I found octo corpses a few nights ago. I hadn't seen them in about two weeks, and I suspected the worst. I had plenty of food in there for them and my levels are great. I think the damsels might have stressed or attacked them since they weren't that big. The corpses I pulled out were about 2 inches in the body section. I guess they weren't eating enough because I thought they would have been much bigger. I was going to empty out my 55 gallon for them and put my cuttles in the big tank, but now I will just keep my 55 gallon a freshwater and prep the 135. If I keep octos again I'm going to make it a point to not have any other animals in there besides the ones I'm feeding them that night. The cuttlefish are active enough that they should clean up on the damsels and shrimp according to Colin.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com
 
If you use ro/di you should be all set unless its time for a ro filter change. I thought I read one of your posts though that said you toped off tith tap water, I may be wrong. You can buy a copper test kit and do it yourself. I use aquarium systems fast tests. I just think its strange that both octos died so soon. I would hate to see something happen to your cuttles. They are more delicate than octos in a lot of ways.
chris
 
flash photography

flash photography

Without stating the obvious, octos are very nervous and intelligent creatures and will be highly stressed when shipped. Next time you might want to refrain from zapping them with flash photography when you first acclimate them and every time they come out exploring their new environment. FWIW.
 
I have topped off with tap water on occasion, but usually it's when I can't get to the store to get the purified water. I have a water purifier on the faucet that I use that claims to remove 99.9% of metals and such. Hopefully this helps for the few times I use it. I thought about getting a RO/DI system myself, but I'm not sure which is a good brand and I know the cost is a little high. Any ideas? I really think the octos were stressed and just not eating as much toward the end. I should have totally removed the damsels and maybe even the shrimp. The shrimp were dragging the corpses around in the sand, otherwise I never would have found them.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com
 
Well Mike it could any one of many different things. Or a combination of few. I am very choosy about everything I put in my tanks. Recently my mimic has become very distant and started to act strange. I did tests on water and found nitrate to be a little higher than normal so I did a water change. Well my mimic started to act even stranger. Sleeping all the time, not eating well... I was worried that old age was setting in and octo was on its way out. I checked my log I keep and started to look at things. I keep a temp data logger on the tank and my temp was steady and fine, did repeated tests with new test kits all were fine. I did another water change to see if the water could have had some contamination in it my tests did not/ could not see. Things still seemed to get worse. I tested my water right out of my ro/di and that seemd fine. Finally after looking at my log I realised A month or so ago
I switched from reef crystals to instant ocean salt. The reason being was my local store was out of reef crystals and I was due for a water change on my tanks. I had noticed in my mantis tank too that my tube anemone was looking crappy. So I went to my favorite LFS to get some reef crystals and wound up having a interesting discussion with the people I trust there very much.
It turns out they stopped selling instant ocean a few years back after they too had wierd things happening... My suspicions about instant ocean were peaking.
I got home with the reef crystals, mixed up a batch, let it get to temp and oxygenate over nite and did a large change the next night when the mimic was under the sand sleeping. I also changed some water in my mantis tank.
The next morning my mimic came running out to greet me, fed nicely on a piece of shrimp and seemed a lot more active. That evening it was up exploring the tank all night, something it had not been doing in a month. My tube anemone in my mantis tank looked a lot better too and was taking food. I will continue doing water changes till I am sure all the instant ocean is out of my tanks!! Now I am not sure if the 25 gln box of IO I bought was bad or it just did not work for my mimic. All I know is that I have always had luck with reef crystals since day one and will never change again.
Instant ocean might be a fine salt and might not even have been the problem. But it takes a variable out of the equasion for me and things seem to be better.
 
You know it's a funny thing you mention this because I had been using Tropic Marin for the salt in my tanks until my last bag. I have been using Instant Ocean instead(like you, because my LFS was out of Tropic Marin), and the bag is about empty. I think I am going to switch back to the Tropic Marin and see if that helps. I hope this switch didn't cause the death of my octos! I will also test my water for metals to see if that is a factor. I only use the purified tap water on rare occasion, but it would be nice to know how pure it really is. Maybe I will do a filtered and unfiltered test on the water to compare. I will do another water change when I get the Tropic Marin tomorrow to weed out the Instant Ocean from my system. I'll let you know what the test results are.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com
 
I doubt it was your salt mike with the size tank you have. I can't say for sure it was the salt for sure in mine but the switch back to reef crystals did seem to work real well and fix my problem.
I was worried from day one when you first wrote to ceph list because at the time your tank had only been cycled a month whenyou added octos. I strongly feel that this my be a key part of it. I know your tank tests fine but if your not testing every day then you might get a killer spike you dont see. I really hope it is ok and ready to handle your cuttles. Only time will tell.
 
How often should I test now? I have been testing once a week for ammonia, nitrate, and ph, while salt levels and temperature readings are checked daily. When I first started out I did these all every day. I even have a log of my readings. I also have been adding Kent Essential Elements, and Super Buffer once a week. I am going to do all of the tests and add all of the supplements tomorrow after I do a water change and use the new salt today. I hope that by now my tank is seasoned enough for the cuttles I will get this week. I hope I didn't push the octos too hard by getting them so early into my tank's development.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com
 
Mike
When you first wrote to ceph list we tried to explain it takes about 6 months for the tank to be cycled for cephs. It's a slow process thats takes time to do right. The first month of a tank set up you should have your sand, rock and some thing to seed the bacteria and get it going like a piece of raw shrimp. While the shrimp sits in your tank you test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate every couple of days and record your results. You should see a spike of ammonia then nitrite then nitrate in that order. The levels should then reduce when the bacteria builds up its army.
After that you need to keep the army fed and keep slowly adding more waste to get the bacteria army growing bigger and bigger.
Your army needs to be huge. Cephalopods put out 3 times as much waste as the same weight in fish. So you should be testing twice a week at this time so you make sure you see any spikes.
After a while your tank should be seasoned and ready. The process takes about 6 months to be very solid and stable.
What I think happend is you added your octos too soon and your army was not big enough. Your tank is large so the volume of water buffered you for some time. Then you got a spike that weakend or stressed your octos and lead to their demise. By the time you tested the water, the levels corrected them selves because the bacteria had now adjusted to the spike.
I know that its hard to wait and over come the excitement of getting your first cephalopod but they do require specific care and in the long run your success will be worth the wait!
 
Ok, here are the test results today after my water change two days ago:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: <.3
Nitrate: 12.5
Salinity: 1.021
Temp: 73.5 F
PH: 8.0
Copper: Negative

Everything is looking good from what I can tell. I will keep testing every day until the cuttles arrive on Tuesday to make sure I don't have any spikes. Also, I found out the other day that my LFS carries ghost shrimp for 14 cents each! I think these guys might become my regular food serving for the cuttlefish. They are supposed to be better for them than goldfish, and much more nutritious. Please let me know if anyone has had any problems with feeding these shrimp to their fish/inverts.

Thanks,

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

P.S. I am trying to keep the web cam on every day, so check it out if you get a chance from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central Time. The lights don't come on until noon though!
 
What brand of tests kits are you useing mike? Nitrite is more dangerous than ammonia to cephs. You should read 0 for nitrite. Or the lowest scale on your test kit.
The other thing is your salinity is tooo low. It should be up around 1.025. Cephs like full strength sea water. They will not live long in weak sea water.
Ghost shrimp are great. And thats a great price on them.
If you get a bunch I would enrich them with some good food to gut load them. You can even use selco, selcon or zoecon to help boost their hufa value.
Good luck on the cuttles keep us posted.
 
My test kits are the Tetra brand(came with when I got the tank). The Nitrite reading is the lowest on the little color card from the kit. By the looks of the liquid it was more like 0, but I put down the lowest reading on the card. I know that the salinity is too low, and I have been beefing it up since the water change. It always drops a little when I do one and I have to get it back up. Have you had any experience with the automatic variety of aquarium products that keep the salinity, water level, and so on constant?

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com
 
I have used tetra and they are ok. I switched to Tropic Marian for nitrite/nitrate because they have a more defined smaller scale. The other thing to remember is test kits are no good after a year.
For a safe margin I would upgrade every 8 months.
As far as keeping salinity up. Most of the salt should stay in the tank when the water evaporates.
You will have some salt creep. I just add fresh ro /di water every day to top off. Some folks I know add a little salt to the top off water to compensate for any salt loss. This can be tricky though. I would just get a good hydrometer and test weekly. I orded a new hydrometer called a aerometer sold by fishsupply.com. It should be here today. I am interested to see how it compares with all the other salinity gauges I have. I hear they are excellent. You cal also build your own water top off system, they are very easy to make.
 
Is nitrite more poisonous to cephs than ammonia? I always presumed that ammonia would be worse. I did read an online report that suggested that nitrate only affected cephs when it came to breeding.
Still, I know what this hobby is like; ask a hundred different aquarists and you get a hundred different answers.

Chris, do you add iodine and other trace elements for your octos?
 
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