Leaving the Nest

Today, we will be donating most of the babies to U.C. Berkeley's Marine Biology department. 6 of the octopus babies have been given away to a cephalod enthusiast over in San Francisco and another 5 will be given to a cuttlefish breeder in Alameda. We will be keeping 3 of them (and who knows how many are still left in the tank. This morning, there was one fast little bugger that I couldn't catch).

5 did not make it.

Ossie waved at me this morning when I waved at her. I cried because I felt she was saying goodbye. Bratworse scoffed; she said Ossie's saying Hi. Ying and Yang.

We've separated out the babies into individual plastic cups. The routine is, feed them 1-2 tigger pods a night, and change the water every 2 days. So far, the ones that have survived are looking fairly hardy. I've already picked out two I want to keep. Bratworse is going to select another 6 and of these, 5 will go to the Alameda breeder.

I keep wanting to stay in their room and observe if they're hunting the tigger pods or what. Bratworse keeps telling me to leave them alone. They are incredibly cute.

One of the ones I want to keep, got so excited at the prospect of tigger pods, that he did a somersault, then turned pink then stretched out to twice its size before setting off in pursuit of the tigger pod.

Hopefully, the three that we do decide to keep, we'll have the 75-gallon set up for them as their new home.