One of the local fish shops who I supply fish to asked if I would be interested in attempting to raise some octopus eggs that a female octopus had laid. They had been expecting them to hatch soon and sure enough once I got them home and into a bucket to acclimatise to the tank I was going to put them in, I noticed that a couple were moving around. I left them for about 30 seconds and came back to find two little octopus swimming around in the bucket. Over the next hour five hatched and are all doing well about 6 hours later.
Bad/Unfertilized egg
Good Egg
Video of inside of an egg with a healthy octopus in it
Im about an hour old
Another one, this time im full of colour and running away from an Amphipod
I dont know the species of Octopus, other than the female was collected from the Geraldton area, she is approx 4-5" across the body with 8-10" legs.
I have put the eggs into the same setup I used for tumbling bangii cardinal eggs (beaker with a pump flowing into it to move the eggs).
About 2/3's of the eggs have visible eye spots and when I look at them under the camera macro lens, movement is seen (heart, wiggling etc).
The one above that has red dots its quite funny to watch. I put some some small amphipod in with him/her. They started to fight as amphipods tend to do, and the octopus went over to watch. Once they were done, the octopus swam off. It appears to be avoiding the amphipods. Ill try them with some brine shrimp in the morning.
<message edited by CaptCrash on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 12:45 PM>