UPDATED January 7, 2012

Welcome! Before you get started, please ensure you have read and are comfortable with the TONMO.com Forum Guidelines and Cephalopod Care Ethics Statement:

CEPHALOPOD CARE ETHICS

1. TONMO.com respects the lives of cephalopods.
At TONMO.com, our first priority is to provide free exchange of information for the betterment of the lives of cephalopods. Therefore, anyone interested in the mistreatment of cephalopods is not welcome on TONMO.com.

Be aware that raising a cephalopod is hard work. It takes a good amount of knowledge in both saltwater aquariums and also the particulars of cephalopod care itself. TONMO.com articles and forums offer an abundance of content for you to study before considering owning your own -- we strongly encourage all people interested in having a "pet" cephalopod to gain substantial experience with saltwater tanks first, while also deeply studying cephalopod care and cephalopods themselves. Remember that there is no shame in deciding not to own a cephalopod as a pet -- your humble Webmaster doesn't even own a fishbowl!

In addition, while we do encourage some degree of hobbyist experimentation (and sharing of learnings), all measures should be taken to avoid any experiments which are unethical, yield no new scientific insight and/or involve unnecessary animal suffering. We urge total caution and open consultation with regard to any experiments involving cephalopods. Please be sure you a) have the proper facilities, and b) can offer a clearly stated purpose and outline all safety measures and monitoring procedures to ensure the “well-being” of the cephalopod is maintained throughout your experiment. Under the right circumstances, experimentation can not only be enlighening, but fun for both you and your cephalopod!

TONMO.com does not support the collection of cephalopods for the home aquarium trade by measures such as harmful chemical or cyanide fishing or the collection of "rare" species. Where possible, always buy captive bred cephalopods and support aquaculture. Benefits of captive bred cephalopods include:

• Known species - most people that can breed and raise cephalopods know what species they have and what captive conditions they thrive in.
• Known age and therefor predictable life-span. Cephalopods do not live long and knowing their age is a huge help in distinguishing natural senescence vs disease and/or water quality issues.
• Small young animals are easier and less expensive to ship.
• Small young captive raised animals are more likely to quickly adapt to another captive system.
• Financially supporting someone that has spent a lot of time and effort to captive breed cephalopods (don't try cephalopod breeding if you want to get rich quick or keep your wife happy).

Examples of species which should be avoided include blue rings, metasepia, mimic and wonderpus, and nautilus. Regarding blue rings, consider this article from our own Dr. Roy Caldwell.

Examples of species which we do condone include O. bimaculoides, Sepia spp, O. vulgaris.

Guidelines for Cephalopod Purchase or Aquisition:

We recommend purchasing tank-bred or aquacultured cephalopods, when available. Rescued cephalopods, whether from a trap or from live rock, are also recommened.

Wild-caught cephalopods, caught by natural means (no damaging chemicals) are acceptable.

Capturing a cephalopod yourself is recommended only for experienced keepers, and you need to check whether you need a permit.

Do not purchase cephalopods whose populations are threatened or whose status is not known, such as wunderpus and mimic.

Do not purchase blue-ring octopuses because of their potentially lethal venom.

TONMO FORUM RULES

2. All seed posts must be on-topic.
This means that new topics that are started in our public forums must be about cephalopods, or VERY closely related. Peruse our existing topics and you'll quickly get the idea -- this is a site about anything and everything pertaining to cephalopods (octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus, and ancient cephs/fossils as well). The only exception to this rule is in our private Off Topic forum for staff and Supporters, where off-topic banter is welcomed (and prevalent ).

3. All replies within a thread must be related to the thread.
Replies to seed posts do NOT necessary have to be about cephalopods, but they do need to be related to the thread itself. For example:

Seed Post: I want to find a book about octopuses. (acceptable)

Reply #1: A World Guide to Cephalopods is a great place to start! (acceptable)

Reply #2: Have you tried Barnes & Noble, in the science section? I've found good stuff there. (acceptable).

Reply #3: Reading gives me a headache . (acceptable)

Reply #4: Try reading with your eyes closed, that helps. (acceptable*, but see comment below)

Reply #5: I just bought a new hat today and it only cost me $5! (unacceptable; candidate for deletion).

*Generally, the community will self-police a thread that has "strayed" too far off topic... (e.g., the seed poster (or someone interested) may (or may not) come back and say, "hey folks, can we stay on topic here? Now about those octopus books..."). If it really becomes an ongoing diatribe the thread may be cleaned or closed.

4. No Solicitations.
Posts trying to sell or promote products or services are not allowed in any forum, EXCEPT Marketplace (in accordance with those guidelines; see the sticky note in that forum), and our Partner/Sponsor forums. If you would like to advertise on TONMO.com or have your own sponsored forum, please contact me at email@tonmo.com.

5. Seed posts should be well-thought out and generally well-written.
You don't have to be a poet, but "i neeedd yr HELP PLEASE im a n00b ITHINK MI OCTI IS HAVNG BABBIES = THANK YOU FPOR HELPINGG ASAP JST EMAIL ME CAUSE I WONT BE BACK LOL!!" is what we're trying to avoid here. Our staff and community generally have a low tolerance for incoherent postings, and they have proclaimed they are much less likely to provide assistance to posts that are not well-thought out or considerate of our community.

6. No Trolls.
A "troll" is someone who is posting notes with the sole purpose of provoking the community by preying on emotions or by being generally insulting. Here's an example, this actually appeared in our Introduce Yourself forum:

Seed Post: "Hello, I am, like my name suggests, an evil republican (the guys that disagree with you guys all the time and are brainwashed into liking big coorperations). Just wanted to say hi and that, providing I'm not banned for clearly not breaking any rules, you will see a lot of me playing devils advocate to what I feel I must educate you about. See you on the forums!"

Whatever your political affiliation is, surely you can see that this was a Trolling post (not to mention it has nothing apparent to do with cephalopods). Yes, I will stop calling you Shirley.

7. Be courteous.
Needs no explanation, ay?

8. Help yourself.
I really put this rule here so that we'd have 8 rules, to match the number of arms an octopus has. But since you're still reading this (as you well should be!), please be sure to help yourself to our articles and our Forum Search function before posting your question -- you may find your question has already been asked! If you aren't able to find the answer, please do go ahead and post away. You'll find that we're an active community and we're eager to help our fellow ceph heads!

Additionally...

Although the administrators and moderators of TONMO.com will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of TONMO.com (Deep Intuition, LLC) nor its staff will be held responsible for the content of any message.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-orientated, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

The owners of TONMO.com (Deep Intuition, LLC) and its staff reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason. Non-copyrighted content posted to TONMO.com forums may be reused or republished by TONMO.com at its sole discretion.

Please note that failure to abide by the guidelines listed above may result in a warning, banning, etc.

Finally, please refer to the Deep Intuition, LLC Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.