Tang Salad

Just placed my order, and all of the discounted prices showed up.

Thanks to Reef Pug for organizing this.

I'm in.

Pm'd you Reef Pug.

Fragin22 has some sweet corals; you should definitely check them out!

For such a well respected scientist WTF is wrong with his space bar? For real. I can't take a thing he has to say seriously.

As an owner of blue ring octopus, I will continue to stay out of this discussion. I am sure you already know what I think about it all.

Mike, I do apologize for offending your refined sense of typographic propriety. However, all blame should fall on my shoulders, and not those of Dr. Caldwell. The spaces are not missing on the original page, the one linked to at the bottom of the quotation. I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow they were removed in the act of cutting and pasting. If you haven't been overly offended, maybe you'll take the time to click on that link. Knowing now that you keep a Blue-ringed Octopus, I would like especially to hear your opinion on this. I'm particularly interested in whether you think the observations described in Dr. Caldwell's brief letter do more to advance our understanding of these species, than say, you or I keeping one in a small glass box, where little or nothing of scientific value is ever learned.

I'm not trying to be a jerk about this; I am, however, quite surprised at the anti-science attitude displayed in most of the above posts.

Ok, here's what the cruel, horrible man who shot the video had to say about it:

The purpose of feeding the H. lunulata to the O. scyllarus was part ofa larger line of study examining coevolutionary arms races. Inparticular we are interested in how predator and prey interact and dealwith various offensive and defensive morphologies and behaviors. Theanimals were not put together for our entertainment. I wanted to ask afairly basic initial question - would a stomatopod that occurssympatrically with a blue-ring attack it? We generally think that thecoloration of blue-rings is aposomatic, but aside from people usuallyavoiding them because they recognize the blue-rings and have been toldby other humans that they are dangerous, I know of no data that thatdemonstrate that the blue rings serve as a warning to any other speciesthat might play the role of "predator". The next question to ask ifthere was avoidance would be whether this behavior was learned ofinnate? Similar research has been done on other aposomatic systems suchas mot-mots and coral snakes, yellow-bellied sea snakes exposed topredatory fish or herons and egrets, etc. It has not been done withblue-rings. Making the question even more interesting from anevolutionary perspective is the fact that both H. lunulata and O.scyllarus have indeterminate growth so it is possible for theirinteractions to vary with different size relationships - largestomatopods might be able to kill and/or eat smaller blue-rings andlarge blue-rings might be able to prey of smaller stomatopod. Thiscould considerably complicate the dynamics. It would seem moredifficult for an innate avoidance to evolve under these circumstancesor even possibly a learned one.

So where do you start exploring such a question. I would prefer to makemy initial observations in the field watching blue-rings andstomatopods interact, but such observations are extremely difficult andeven if you are persistent and patient enough to see a few encounters,you have little control over the participants, their size, physiology,motivation, experience, etc. Aside from those who are opposed tocarnivores killing and eating prey, I assume most people would notobject to this type of research. Bringing the animals into thelaboratory gives us much more control over the interactions. First, Ican control the predator making sure that it is hungry my depriving itof food for a specified period, making sure that it is not approachinga molt, etc. If it doesn't attack the octopus, I know that it is notsimply avoiding the blue-ring because it isn't hungry. It is alsoeasier to control the size relationship between the two and to assaythe blue-ring to determine how much TTX it contains and/or delivers.(The former is done through chemical analysis; the later by giving theoctopus a live grass shrimp, waiting a prescribed period after theinitial attack, removing the shrimp and analyzing it to see how muchTTX it contains.)

While the intereaction was staged, it was done in a very large tank(200 gal) with lots of rock into which the participants could escape.The stomatopod did have a pvc burrow, but it would have an even betterone in the field.

When I presented the blue-ring to the stomatopod, I expected one ofthree outcomes. Most likely I thought, the stomatopod would flee orsimply ignore the octopus. If so, I was interested to see if theblue-ring would also flee, do nothing, or attack (but these aredifferent questions from what I was primarily interested in.)Alternatively, the stomatopod could attack driving off or killing theblue-ring. The third alternative, which I did not expect, was that thestomatopod would kill and eat the blue-ring.

As you saw, the later happened. What you did not see was that thestomatopod continued to pound the octopus for about 25 minutes, longafter it was initially disabled, and then killed. Several times duringthis period, the stomatopod appeared to sample the octopus, jumped backand extensively cleaned its mouth parts. Finally, it ate the entirecorpse. We watched the stomatopod for several days and it seemed noworse for the meal. When offered another blue-ring, it also attackedand ate it suggesting that it had not learned to avoid them. In fact,there seemed to be no reason to.

What is interesting here is the behavior of the predator. I've watchedstomatopods kill and eat other species of octopus and I had never seenthis extended period of processing. This suggested to me that the O.scyllarus was mechanically removing the TTX containing venom from thedead blue-ring by repeatedly pounding and manipulating it. Of coursethere also remains the possibility that some stomatopods such as O.scyllarus have evolved resistance to TTX, perhaps by modification oftheir sodium channels as has occurred in garter snake populations thatprey on TTX containing newts. We are indeed conducting the obviousexperiments of feeding predators pieces of shrimp injected with TTX,injecting TTX directly into stomatopods, etc. However, to test themechanical processing hypothesis, we have to measure the TTX containedin a prey animal before and after a stomatopod has processed it.Further questions would then consider whether the processing behavioris learned or innate, what happens as the size of the prey approachesthat of the prey, are small O. scyllarus resistant to attacks bypredatory blue-rings, etc. If it turns out that O. scyllarus areresistant to TTX, then we would like to know if this occurs in otherspecies that occur with or do not occur with blue-rings.

I see this as a legitimate and ethical line of research. Clearly thereare issues related to any research involving predator - preyrelationships. We try to minimize the number of animals used andcertainly try to avoid threatened species, etc. However, often thequestion dictates what species are used. In this case, it happens to beblue-rings - not because they are "beautiful", but because they containTTX and have what appears to be aposomatic coloration and we would liketo understand how such systems coevolve and function.

I do not stage "**** fights" to satisfy my own or anyone else's desireto be titillated. I have advised on various nature films that may haveincluded fighting and predation sequences, but in that context neitherI or my science have been attacked. In fact some of the same people whoseem so affended by this sequence have praised those very films.

(By the way, I was not an advisor on "Incredible Suckers" although Ihave worked with Mike several times and I've discussed the H. fasciatasequence with him. The blue-ring - stomatopod encounter was staged inan aquarium, was between a blue-ring and stomatopods that do not occurtogether, and came to a conclusion that I think was not justified. Ifyou look carefully at the sequence, there are at least two differentstomatopods used. The first one injured the octopus and was replaced bythe second. The story told was that blue-rings release venom to killprey at a distance. This has not been fully documented and our attemptsto replicate it have failed. I suspect that in this case if thestomatopod was killed by venom, it was probably because the injuredoctopus was "leaking" saliva due to being stabbed.)

O.K., I've rambled on long enough. I can take personal criticism, butwhen people feel that they can attack the quality of science beingconducted in my laboratory, I take it personally. It was clearly amistake to post that clip and I will do my best to have it purged fromthe web.

Link

In this instance someone put two animals together for the express purpose of seeing WHICH WOULD DIE FIRST and there is nothing redeeming about that.

Maybe I missed something, but how do you know why this was done?

My point above was that this video wasn't shot by some random hobbyist; it was shot by a guy who has been researching mantis shrimp for decades. I think it's safe to assume that he didn't do it for entertainment.

That video is credited to Roy Caldwell, one of the world's leading Stomatopod experts.

Very nice! I'm looking forward to seeing this progress.

I think you'll be very happy with the Tunze powerheads. I have a 48g SPS set up as a peninsula style tank, and am using the same pumps: 2 6055 and 2 6025. Because it's peninsula, I only have pumps on one end and they provide plenty of circulation all over the tank. On a black background, they are not at all obtrusive.

I think the only reasonable, and legal, way to do this would be to go through a wholesaler. Getting the proper permits as an individual would be very difficult. Shipping them incognito via FedEx or EMS would likely result in dead fish and/or legal consequences.

Edit: Assuming your friend is in Taipei, he/she might try asking at one of the LFSs on Minchuan East Road. A few of them do a lot of importing/exporting and may be able to help.

Cool, thanks Kacey. If you wanted to trade it for some blastos, that'd be great! I could meet in either North or South Austin...Central would work as well. But the sooner, the better as I have other plans for this tank.

as long as it is not cruel to the mantis he can hurt any human he wants, but do not hurt the mantis lol.

I am going to keep mine. If you want to get rid of yours, and no one will take him, I can trade you some frags.

Cool, what kind of frags do you have?

Do mantis get along with each other?

Sorry, no they do not. From everything I've read they are nearly impossible to pair up, and it shouldn't be attempted. (I thought Kacey was only joking about that, so I was just joking back.)

Wow, and your offer was way better than mine. Must be bad timing.

I'd love for ours to get together and hang out and mate and stuff, but I'll probably end up using mine in an elaborate practical joke I have planned.

Very healthy, active and colorful.

$50 or trade for nice SPS.

Local Pickup Only, please.

Pics taken without and with flash:

I'd say he's a little over 6 inches long, but haven't put the ruler close enough to measure.

That's a very nice coral, and at a great price.

Hey all-

I've been looking for a Peacock Mantis for a while now. If anyone has one they don't really want anymore, or if anyone sees one at a local store, please let me know! I'd be happy to pay cash, or make some kind of trade for it. The sooner, the better.

Any leads greatly appreciated!

Craig

Yes, they are very nice looking tanks. Aquatek on Burnet has plenty of them in stock now.

Do you think a skimmer will be more benificial to the tank then a fuge?

That is a difficult comparison to make. Ideally, you would have both.

If I was in your position, and had removed all fish to fight a HA problem, I would keep tank dark (including ambient/sunlight) for several weeks while skimming heavily. After a week or so of darkness go in there and scrub and siphon out as much alage as you can. Repeat this several times, all the while skimming as aggressively as possible. At the end of it all, do a large water change and see how your nutrient levels are.

How is your skimmer working? Does it take out much skimmate?

You probably do not want to remove the skimmer.

As the algae dies and decomposes, the skimmer will pull the organics out of the water.

I agree that it come down to personal preference. The best advice is to go to a few stores and see how the different bulbs and K-ratings look on tanks. Remember that the same K-rating may appear different if it's made by different manufacturers.

If you want to get really technical, you can read some of Sanjay's reports here.

That said, my personal favorite is the Phoenix 14K.

That's a tough one.

I would certainly be more merciless in haggling the price down.

I'd like to go. And it's just me, one person.

Thanks!

I also use the MD blue 30-$40 one and like it just fine.

Remember though, that refractometers should be calibrated the 1st time you use them. Some of them are 

off by quite a bit when you first get them. 

I'm in.

Thanks, FC. I look forward to meeting y'all.