I am keeping a female O. vulgaris and my LFS whom I received her from has just received a male. I was wondering if I should buy the male and try breeding them. I realize the eggs will be very small and the newly hatched babies will be planktonic but does anyone have advice as to how I can encourage them to breed and how difficult will it be to raise the offspring?

Getting them to mate will not be a problem. You might be able to convince the owner to allow you to "borrow" the male for a day or two provided the you pay for him if he dies or is eaten.

If they do mate, there is the question of whether this will induce the female to lay eggs sooner than if she did not. I don't know the answer to this for O. v., but this does seem to be the case in Hapalochlaena.

Finally, the chance of rearing O. v. from the egg is extremely poor. It has been done a few times by researchers at marine laboratories, but it would be difficult in a small closed system.

Roy

i say go for it, even if you do buy the male, the babies will be worth it.

You can try it but the chances of getting any babies to live are very very slim and eggs are about the size of a pin head, and they would need a constant supply of live zooplankton. If you want to breed octopus stick with large eggs species like Bimac's.

r octo eggs hard to keep alive?

Octo eggs do take time, effort, and patience. I've ordered a festoon from Octopets that were held up at customs. Out of the twelve that arrived at my door I've been able to hatch two which have tripled in size since they hatched three weeks ago. They need a constant supply of live food. I go to my local beach every other day to catch food for them. At first they ate tiny amphipods and now I feed them tiny crabs which are easier to catch. I keep them in two separate guppy breeding containers with lots of 1/2 inch PVC pipes to hide in. The containers sit just below the surface of water in my main tank keeping their habitat shallow so they can easily catch their food. I'd like to post pictures as soon as I figure out how to with my digital camera.

Hi Sneegs,

Hope both of your hatchlings make it! It's so much easier to raise octopuses (or any ceph) if you're near the ocean so you can catch the live food.

Looking forward to pics!

Nancy


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would the eggs of O. Briareus fall into the catagory of small eggs, like vulgaris? or large eggs, like O. Bimac?

-Keith

Briareus are large-egg with benthic hatchlings.
http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/rearing.php