im getting a briarus species octopus for my 55 in my bedroom and jim emaild me today to let me know that he is shipping my two bimacs for my 240 gallon tank today as well for tommorow delivery

im gonig to be so busy , acclimating them

im doing a water change on my 240 as my nitrates are a litle high ,

they are a light orange where it is suppossed to be yellow, but other than nitrates,

everything looks great


i need some names.


fingers ? adn then i need a couples name for the two bimacs that will be going in the 240

maybe lucy and ethel lol

brilliant!!! your gunna need some feeder tank!!!

I'd go for Bert an Ernie or

Ted & Dougle and Jack ( not sure if you'll get that if you havnt seen Father Ted)

i vote Cliff and Norm

i have about 500 nassarius obselata snails i got on ebay for $25

ill start feeding those and hopefully get to go to rozen foods

oh guys im so excitd, i have literaly been waitin 2.5 months to get an octo

i got the briarus on ebay and the other two from octopets.

Wow!!! I am soooo jealous!!! Nothing like having octos from one end of the house to the other!!! Make sure you keep us updated!!!! And acclimate slowly!!!!

Carol

my last octo i acclimated for 30 minutes adding 5 ml of water every 5 minutes

but i think im even going to do it slowe this time


one reason it was so short last time is caue the last time i approached the bag to add 5 more ml , he inked really bad and i thought it would kill him if i left him in the bag


ive never kept briarus species before , im eager to see what it looks like.

i hear they dont like lights though , so im going to have to find me so really low wattage bulbs
right now on his tank is 80 watts of regular flourescent

Use the drip method: take a few feet of air line tubing, tie a couple loose knots in it and start a siphon from your main tank into his bag. Tighten or losen the knots as needed so the water drips in--that way you don't need to freak him out every few minutes. I've been lurking on seahorse pages and some of them recommend to let the bag sit in the tank for fifteen minutes BEFORE dripping to start matching the temperature.

Dan

kool.


i dont know if 2 octopus has ever been kept together on this board

but octopets tol dme they keep severtal together fine and that I should be more than ok with 2 in a 240 gallon as long as they are well fed

how bout jack the ripper and the boston strangler

lol never heard of boston strangler

like in the rolling stones song

Ted & Dougle and Jack ( not sure if you'll get that if you havnt seen Father Ted)

DRINK :beer: :wine: :cheers:


I Like Father Jack!!!!

J

I kept 2 baby bimacs from Octopets, sad to say it did nto work, the stress they caused one another eventually killed them both, good luck tho.

I don't know anything about octo husbandry, but theres something to be said for keeping multiples in a tank. This means either one or a lot, not just two. In some cases it spreads out aggression, in other cases it negates aggression altogether. Again, I'm surprised to read that it is not standard practice to allow the bag to float for 15 minutes before adding water. In the tropical fish hobby this is always done to minimalize temperature shock, and most trop. fish are MUCH hardier than cephs. Just somemore thoughts. Congrats though on such expansion!!! I'm sitting here in a dorm room completely devoid of life and I'm not impressed (I gotta get myself at least a betta!). Look forward to hearing more.

Cheers!

:shock:

*sigh*

greg

Hmm, instead of getting one bimac for my 75, maybe I should get 12.

Dan

I think I worship the god of eternal frustration...it just seems that no matter what you do, things like this occur...and you feel tired and helpless.

g

Thank you Travis for posting about your attempts to keep two octos together. We've had at least three attempts to keep two bimacs together here on this site and not one was successful. Not only were the octos very stressed, but the owners as well. I think we need to let Octopets know about this, too.

Nancy

The aquarium hobby is full of well-intentioned people who are trying to break new ground...whether using an Eclipse tank for a reef, or housing too many animals in one space. The problem is, they actually believe they are trying something different, instead of listening to all of the failures of the past and learning from them.
Octopus have a large territorial area in the wild. Certainly larger than a few square feet. Yes, they can be housed together for brief periods of time...just like you can have houseguests over for a day or two without going crazy. In the long run, it is the animals that pay the ultimate price for this sort of experimentation.
If you are interested in housing multiple animals in the same tank, perhaps talking to Sir Righty about his dwarf cuttles might be the best way to go, yes ?

There is always a chance that it could work out, odd tank arrangements and multiple octos in one area, of course...it is just that the realities of the situation outweigh the possibilities by a long margin, and we are talking about life here...not some abstract.

rant over,

greg

if we had clapping hands smilies I would of put em on here Greg

p.s. I would one day love to have a GPO in my house, I beleive this is the way forward! Anyone any idea on tank sizes you'd require out of intrest?

LIVERPOOL IS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!

p.s. I would one day love to have a GPO in my house, I beleive this is the way forward! Anyone any idea on tank sizes you'd require out of intrest?

Hi Scouse,

Here's something I posted to Reef Central a couple of months ago about keeping a GPO. I've also added a few new things (identified by >> at the beginning of the line) as well.

In no particular order:

- Decent quality COLD water - Enteroctopus dofleini aka Giant Pacific Octopus aka GPO is a cold water species and needs water in the 50 to 60F range. Of course, you would want to strive for the best water quality possible but this species has demonstrated the ability to tolerate less than perfect.

>> Our water temp is 10 to 13C. Our octo tank is made of acrylic that's something like 3cm thick. A glass tank this large at this low a temp would generate HUGE amounts of condensation!

- Space - In a roughly 3 year normal lifespan a GPO will grow from almost microscopic to 80 - 100 pounds and an armspan of 12 -20 feet. [FWIW: The size records for GPO's are just under 600 pounds and something like 30+ feet armspan. That was probably a non-breeding male that lived well beyond the normal 3 years.] Further, you need to make sure that the tank is escape proof. Keep in mind that a determined GPO can get through a hole that's less than 2 inches across and is strong enough to move a surprisingly heavy barrier.

- Food - Octos are among the most efficient animals on earth when it comes to converting food into flesh. Even so, to achieve that kind of growth rate a GPO eats a lot. Each year at the marine center where I volunteer we try to get a fairly small GPO (10 - 15 pounds and 4 - 6 foot armspan). Over the course of the Memorial Day to Labor Day season a happy GPO will eat two or three Red Rock Crabs per day (Cancer productus which weigh 1 to 1.5 lbs each). During this period the GPO will double or triple in size.

- Enrichment - This may be anthropomorphising a bit but GPO's are prone to boredom. Even though they spend most of their time sleeping in a den they are happiest if given something to 'think' about each day. The most recent enrichment technique that I've heard is to stuff a "Mr Potatohead" toy with shrimp or chopped herring, soak the pieces in shrimp juice, assemble the thing, and give it to the GPO for disassembly. IMHO: If you set up a tank with sufficient places for live prey to hide and fed only live prey, the enrichment issue would take care of itself.

Bottom line: Unless you have the good fortune to have a flow through system drawing from open salt water you'll need quite a large tank - 1000 gallons (4500L) seems about right. Further, you'll need a really good filtration system since GPO's are such heavy eaters. Finally, figure on feeding around a thousand pounds of live food or a combination of live and frozen food during the last active year of the animal's life (not counting the 6 months or so that a female GPO starves during egg gestation). During the earlier part of its life the GPO will obviously eat less but the best choices for food will be more esoteric and may be harder to aquire if you don't live pretty close to the shore.

Of course, if your home or facility is on the water things get a good bit easier. At the center, we pump our water directly out of the harbor so we don't have concerns about nitrogeneous waste build-up or about chilling the water. Further, because of the constantly changing water we can get by with a somewhat smaller tank - we normally keep our GPO in a tank that's around 700 -800 gallons (3000 - 3500L). To feed them we simply put out a couple of crab pots each day which yields sufficient chow for one GPO.

>> FWIW: The Seattle Aquarium uses a 3000 gallon (13,500L) tank for its GPO exhibit


Because of their size GPO's are 'top' predators and don't get particularly high marks in "Gets along well with others". OTOH: There are a few things that can be kept with reasonable safety in the same tank as a GPO. GPO's don't seem to mind or bother anemones. A well fed GPO won't usually bother with such things as snails or limpets. Fish are another story - I suspect that any bottom dwelling fish would be at risk. Mid water fish may or may not be safe according to species; we've kept young salmon (to about 10 inches) with our GPO and, although we never lost one, there were numerous signs that the GPO had attacked them. OTOH: We've never had a problem with the GPO attacking Shiner or Pile Perch (Cymatogaster spp.). Echinoderms should probably be completely avoided although it's possible that Sea Urchins might be safe.

>> I'm pretty sure that the "Shark eating octo" video that was mentioned several days ago was shot at the Seattle Aquarium.

A GPO is almost a requirement for a public aquarium and they give us docents a long ton of information to impart to our visitors. OTOH: For a home aquarium it would be a high maintenance and fairly low entertainment sort of a pet.

>> We've only rarely had a GPO that would spend any significant amount of time outside its den during daylight hours - and we keep the octo tank in a dimly lit part of our facility.

Enteroctopodally yours,

Alex

Of course, if your home or facility is on the water things get a good bit easier. At the center, we pump our water directly out of the harbor so we don't have concerns about nitrogeneous waste build-up or about chilling the water. Further, because of the constantly changing water we can get by with a somewhat smaller tank - we normally keep our GPO in a tank that's around 700 -800 gallons (3000 - 3500L). To feed them we simply put out a couple of crab pots each day which yields sufficient chow for one GPO.

>> FWIW: The Seattle Aquarium uses a 3000 gallon (13,500L) tank for its GPO exhibit


Water quality aside, wouldn't 700-800 gallons still be a little tight for a GPO? A former housemate of mine had a nice 125 setup. I'm imagining stacking 8 of those together and putting a critter in with a 12' armspan in. Sounds a little tight! I would assume that with a setup like this you would release the animal before it got too large (I don't know how a home aquarist would get it out and transport it!).

Is the 3000 gallon tank in Seattle the two connected vertical cylinders? Not knowing anything about GPOs personally, it seemed a little confining for the two they had in there when I was there last spring. But I don't know, maybe they aren't very active or exploratory when they're bigger?

Dan

The ability of multiple octis to be in a tank together appears to be species specific! We can keep up to 6 O. warringa to a tank and they'll generally fight (lots of pushing and shoving) and then sort out a dominance hierarchy based on size and then relatively peacefully co-exist, as long as there is a hidey hole for everyone! BUT you would NEVER keep P. cordiformis in anything other than solitary as they are cannibalistic (which is how Hannibal got his name.....new staff ......... :roll: ) even in our 1200L tank they won't co-habit (not even males and females :oops: :grin: ). I guess too it makes sense most octis in the wild are solitary creatures I can't think of an example where octopus school..................anyone?????????

Cheers

Jean

Howdy folks,

In order to avoid having the GPO freaks hijack this thread, I've started a new thread under the title: Keeping a GPO.

Freakishly yours,

Alex