It Died! :(

[Sea Wraith]

I left this afternoon about 1 pm to take my wife out to lunch and after lunch we went out to catch some small crabs to feed the lil bimac. When we got home about 7 pm it was lying half out of his hiding place and quivering. I immediately checked all the water conditions which were all in great shape, ph 8.2, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, all 0, and the temp was 72 degrees. The tank has been setup and has been cycled for over 2 monthes now with nothing but 1 damsel and the initial dead shrimp which was used to start the cycling process. It made the trip home from the LFS without a hitch and was doing fine untill this evening! I am wondering if maybe it was cyanided when caught and if this is what caused the lil thing to die so suddenly? :sad2: Any suggestions on what could make it shake and quiver and die so quickly? I cant believe he died so quickly and I am really upset over the loss of this wonderful creature and my wife is in tears! :sad1:

[cephalopoder]

Wow sorry about your loss.
The damsel can stress a octo. That has been mentiond in a bunch of posts.Did you use ro/di water? Why was there a dead shrimp in the tank? The dont'y use any chemicals to collect bimacs that is only for anumals out side the country. Bimacs are a us coastal species.

[Sea Wraith]

I used the dead shrimp to start the process of cycling the tank, It has been gone for some time! I was stating that is what I used to start the cycling process. The damsel was a very small green chromis (about 1 inch long) which stayed to himself and never bothered the octo as it is always at the top of the tank swimming back and forth. I use RO/DI water that I get from a LFS by the gallon already prepared with salt and the salinity is at 24.

[cephalopoder]

Hmmm waht brand of salt are you useing? And brand of test kits?

[Sea Wraith]

The salt that the guy at the LFS uses is Instant Ocean and I use a Sea Test kit.

[lori344]

Sea Wraith,
So sorry about your loss, I wish I had something to offer in terms of help... I don't. Knowing nothing about octo's, I thought it was kind of strange that your temp would be at 72 degrees... is this normal temp for them?? If so, amazing that the temp would be almost ten degrees lower than the normal reef :eek1: Again, sorry for your loss, I know it's horrible to watch our beautiful creatures die.
~lori

[cephalopoder]

I don't know what to say? I have had problems with instant ocean.. but I know lots of ceph keepers that use swear by it. It is possible to get a bad batch, that happend to me. There is a old post in the forum about it. Bimacs are the most hardy octo you can get because they are a intertidal species.
I would check for copper, and double check every thing twice. Fish can nip at a small octos eyes though in defence.

[cephalopoder]

Lori.. Bimaculoies is a cold water species.

[lori344]

cephalopoder,
Thanks ;)

[Sea Wraith]

Chris... Tomorrow I'll take a sample of my water to the Marine Biology Dept at the local college and have them test it! I ran the tests twice and both times the water parems came out the same. I'll let you know what they say when I get the results back.

[cephalopoder]

One thing that we all must accept when we take on the goal of keeping cephalopods is they can be tricky to keep and can have a short life span. It happens to the best of us so it may have been something out of your control. I had the same thing happen to my new cuttles. 4 died in less that a week. I would like to think there was something wrong with collection or shipping stress. But I can not rule out some thing wrong with my tank no matter how correct every thing seemed. Cephs can be tricky animals to keep.
I look at this dedicated bunch of ceph keepers in this forum as a group that is breaking new grounds. And by talking to each other about our down falls we will all be better informed in the end. It really sucks to have a ceph die on you. Sucks even worse to have one die with out knowing the cause. But it happens. And as a group of dedicated keepers we will keep talking, trying and perfecting out mistakes and increasing our understanding of this mysterious animal.
Remember.. he who never failed.. never learned anything.
chris

[goodman770]

Great post Chris. Sorry to hear about that Sea. The odd thing about this is that he was eating if I remember correctly. What had he been eating? Some type of food poisening? For what it's worth, my first one died after laying eggs and it does suck. However, my second attempt here seems to be going much better. You may want to try fishsupply.com as others have on here. Sorry to hear about this again, let us know what you plan next...
Bill

[OctoMonkey]

sorry to hear about that, but as Chris says, dont be put off too much, I have had seemingly healthy cephs die for no reason i could put my fingers on either.

Just invest in some good quality test kits, I have had far fewer problems since I did that.

C

[Sea Wraith]

Im using Sea Test kits to check the water parems. It ate 2 small grass shrimp 3 days ago and didnt eat anything at all yesterday! There were grass shrimp available in the tank. I went and caught some really small crabs to put in with him for variety but when I got home he was twitching and almost dead so I put the crabs in a zip lock and froze them in the freezer. I'll be ordering another one this week hopefully. :sad2:

[Rudiger]

Did you say you bought that octopus at a LFS? I dont know about the quality of yours but I know if I bought an octopus and it died shortly after and my water params were fine my initial blame would be on my LFS.

About test kits- I use the saltwater master test kit. Whats the word on those? Can you trust them? Which test kits does everybody use?

pat

[Sea Wraith]

All the LFS's here have a no return policy. They wont take back fish that die. Once you walk out the door with it its your baby so to speak. I even recall seeing that most online merchants wont guarantee and octopus either. :sad2:

[Rudiger]

even fishsupply says they dont guarantee octopuses but from what i have read here from people's experiences fishsupply always has replaced the octo so...

[cephalopoder]

O.bimaculoides and O.mercatoris are the two most hardy octopus you can get. I would suspect something in your tank is off. Copper? or something not tested for. The pre mixed water has me wondering... Maybe you have mantis shrimp in your live rock? Lots of things it could be. The quivering has me wondering? Tell me more about the crabs you caught.

[Sea Wraith]

There is no copper in the tank. Never has been and never will be! I took samples of my water to the two local fish stores today and both tested it and came out fine. I also took a sample to the Marine Biology Dept of the local college and they tested it and said it was absolutely fine. I did give them the octopus to study and they said they will let me know if they find anything as to why it died. They said they dont get many octopus in this area to study but were willing to give it a shot. I have a seperate 15 gallon rubbermaid container with lid and light that I use for quarantine and hospital tank. I never had a chance to add any of the crabs to the tank. I catch them and baby mullet to feed my fish all the time! I've never had a problem with any of the mullets or crabs I've caught in the past that I feed to my other fish. I catch them at a local jetty that is close to home.

[OctoMonkey]

Hi

Copper may accidently be introduced to your aquarium by copper pipes. Perhaps in your house or from another water supply. some LFS's are not aware how sensitives cephs are to copper and therefore may accidently put them in a tank which may have been treated with a copper based medication in the past. Just an idea but it may happen.

As a point of interest, once I have aclimatised a new ceph, normally in a clean bucket and by tipping out the contents adding my aquarium water slowly over an hour or so via an airline syphon. I remove the ceph and add it to the tank. I NEVER put any of the water my livestock comes in into my tanks. Having been a LFS worker myself I know them and therefore I dont trust them so well... thats maybe just me tho :)

C

[Sea Wraith]

I think you hit the nail on the head! In the LFS store where I get my water his lines are all copper. He has his lines hooked up to a RO/DI and water purifier system but I take it the copper could still affect the water! Even though the test kits showed no copper is this possible? This very well may be the reason that my ceph died! I also never put the LFS water in my tank. I do float the bag in my tank for 20 minutes then start adding a few ounces of water from my tank every 15 minutes for an hour and a half to acclimate the fish. :sad1:

[Rudiger]

Your water may not have any copper since you were careful not to add any LFS water, but what about the day or days the octopus was sitting in the LFS's tank? He could have gotten a copper overdose there?

pat

[Gonodactylus]

Copper usually takes a few days to do in an invertebrate. After exposure, octopus and stomatopods will eat for a short time, but eventually they die. I recently had a supplier ship me a collection of octopus and stomatopods that were mistakenly placed in copper treated water that he used to treat fish. I was not as careful as I should have been and contaminated three 125 gal tanks. I eventually had to dump all three set-ups.

I noticed one other thing reading this thread. It was mentioned that the salinity was "24". I suspect that this referred to a specific gravity of 1.024, about what you would want for water at 23 C, but many aquarist also use refractometers where you want about 34 parts per thousand. I have seen people confuse the desired "24" and "34" and end up placing animals in water that was hyposaline. It is probably a good idea to get into the habit of specifying which measure you are using. I know this is old hat for most people on this board, but...

Roy

[TNeal]

I am really sorry about the loss of your little octopi. I know how it feels, I just lost a Chambered Nautilus.

TNeal