I live only 10 minutes away from OctoPets, 5 minutes on my street bike. And I could get the same crabs and clams which the baby octopi where raised on. However I am not sure how much of a market there would be. I know there would most likely be a lot of you who would buy crabs and clams, if the prices were low enough, but then that leads me to my next dilemma, how to supply all these people!!! Well let me know what you guys think, and how much you would be willing to pay, I am not trying to make a profit here, I have a good enough job for that, I just want to help provide everyone with more affordable food, since I know it is expensive to keep our babies well feed.... Well your babies, I don’t have a running Octo Tank anymore, but think ill have to get that rolling in a week or two.

You know, I'm not sure why Octopets doesn't sell more in the way of feed. I understand his cash crop is mussels, so selling bivalves (those larger than 1/2", anyway) should be right up his alley. If he was willing to ship them Priority Mail for a competitive price, I'd certainly buy from him.

Dan

hi tjhonson!, i would sertinetly be interested if you were planning to offer live crabs ect. keep me updated if you decide to take this venture.

What octo owners need and have trouble finding is crabs. Fiddler crabs shipped quite well when I ordered them from the Aquaculture Store. I was never able to order any other species or any larger crabs, couldn't find any for sale. This is something you might look into.

Nancy

Ill try and go catch some, see if it would be worth the time, I have caught them before on the other side of the street from Octopets, but they run into gaps of huge boulders which u cant move, but there is smaller rocks in the lagoon, which makes catching them much eaiser. I went surfing today, I could catch thousands of clams in 10 minutes, for they younger octos. Ashely used to get clams after work for Ollie, and she would sit there eating like 15 clams at a time... Probley not good to bindge like that, but..... Oh and after my trip to the LFS for my weekly water change, and my sister asking when I would get another Octo, I decided to start up a new tank today! So I got 80 lb of substrate to make Agarocrete Live rock, got measurments for my stand and hood, got plexi for my refugium/sump... I think thats it.

Hi Travis,

Look into this experimentally. So the clams are quite plentiful - we need to figure out how to keep the clams best. Some have had many die. You're so fortunate to have them nearby, crabs too!

I don't need any food right now, until I get my next octo. But I'd think there would always be octo owners who would pay for shipments of live food.

Nancy

I know there would most likely be a lot of you who would buy crabs and clams, if the prices were low enough, but then that leads me to my next dilemma, how to supply all these people!!!

Hi Travis,

Before you get into something like this you'd be well advised to look into the fishing regs for your collecting area. Up here in Washington there are possesion limits for the sort of forage animals you're talking about. For the most part, you are allowed a total of ten (10) miscellaneous "Unclassified Marine Invertebrates". It would seem likely that California would not only have a similar regulation but would also enforce it more zealously than they do up here on the frontier.

Harvesting "clams" is another thing that requires a bit more homework. In WA clams are classified into 12 groups (basically by species) for minimum size regulations and then certain groups are split off to form seperate possesion limits. - and that doesn't even consider such bivalves as scallops, mussels, and oysters. Again, although the CA regs are certainly going to be different from WA, I can't imagine them being less strict!

Lawfully yours,

Alex

Hi Travis,

You will certainly need a permit from the Department of Fish and Game to collect anything in California. Then you can only collect from areas that are not protected. The Department of Fish and Game has a map of the areas in California that are considered protected. It is not that difficult to get a permit to collect for yourself although you will need to be affiliated with an aquarium, university or other non-profit to apply for the permit. You can get a commercial permit (in order to resell the crabs and/or clams), but I don't know how involved that is. Let me know if you need any additional information, I had a permit in California so I know how to fill out the paper work.

Jennifer

I think that we all need a good supply of live crabs for our cephs! Many of us aren't fortunate enough to live near a natural supply. It is a great idea and I am sure that before long someone will capatilize on this. You could even start out by selling them on ebay! A cheap alternative to starting your own website. This way you can test the market.

Good Luck!

yeah!!! an buy a plane so you can send all over here!!! :lol:

I'll have to check into all those reg, then I'll update you all.

In some post long ago we discussed catching crabs in California for octo food. I believe someone said you can buy a license and then take them legally. Wish I could find that post!

Nancy