A blue-ringed octopus, a screw cap and a shrimp: The Reef Doc's puzzle

Posted more than a week ago to a modest first day, the short now has viewers cheering the octopus and feeling sorry for the shrimp.

Channel: The Reef DocStory of October 5, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video is running at 1,465,057 views a day, 11 times its usual pace (138,821).

What puzzle should he solve next? #petoctopus #octopus #thereefdoc #aquarium

The Reef Doc keeps pet octopuses, and in "What puzzle should he solve next?" one of them has to work for his dinner. The prize is shrimp. The obstacle is a cap that has to be twisted off.

The short went up on September 27 and had an ordinary first day of about 100,000 views. Then, a week later, it took off, adding more in a single day than in all the days before and carrying the whole channel to around four times its usual daily views. It is now past 2.6 million.

From the comments, the octopus does not take the puzzle quietly. Viewers keep pointing out how his colors brighten and fade as he works, flaring hardest when he gets frustrated, and how he flashes his blue rings. That is the warning display of the blue-ringed octopus, the species the channel tags in its other uploads and one of the most venomous animals in the sea. A favorite moment is the creator coaching him on which way to turn the cap, which by most accounts only annoyed him further. When the lid finally comes off, several viewers describe him jetting away with it like a trophy.

The shrimp have plenty of sympathizers too, with the most liked comment inviting everyone to picture the scene from their side of the container.

Outsmarting octopuses is something of a theme here. In the last few weeks the channel has also posted a short about a disguise that fooled both the creator and the shrimp, and another about a mother octopus that never meets her babies.

Published on Trari

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A blue-ringed octopus, a screw cap and a shrimp: The Reef Doc's puzzle The full story on Trari: https://trari.com/en/story/thereefdoc-4361/?from=kit

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The numbers

A short that started quietly is now leading the channel, more than a week after it went up.

views per day, this video

typical day

138,821

now

1,465,057

subscribers

352,000

▲ 7,000 in the last 7 days

total views

202,138,505

views per day

2,020,276

typical day: 511,056

the video

views

2,634,208

likes

62,906

comments

531

days online

8

compared with similar channels (subscribers)

Feelory

424,000

Catzooka

411,000

Levi, Smuckers & The Twins

381,000

Cactus

363,000

The Reef Doc

352,000

CatchyMals

296,000

As of October 5, 2026 · Data source: Trari Social News, Trari Traffic Trends and Ranking Platform, Google YouTube

Subscriber, view, like and comment counts are YouTube's. Rates, usual days, rankings, comparisons and categories are Trari's own calculations.

Where next?

A different discovery todayVideo taking off 44x its usual first dayAlan Alda, at 90, on polio, Hawkeye and living with Parkinson'sHis conversation with Dr. Jon LaPook led a busy Sunday for the program, and a longer web-only cut of the same interview ran well ahead of the usual too.Channel: CBS Sunday Morning · Story of October 5, 2026