Hi all,

just joined and i'm finding this forum extremely helpful. :D

here's my prob. just got a new bimac 4 days ago. he's in a 35gal which he shares w/ a serpent star & 1 black & white damsel w/ about 30lbs of live rock & a sandy substrate. sg 1.024, temp 77F, pH 8.25. when i first release him into the tank, he shot across the water and planted himself on a piece of rock. he sat there a min and pulsated colors, then ran inside a cave and i haven't seen him since. i've tried putting chopped fresh shrimp & scallops in the tank, but nothing has made him come back out.

last night, out of fear he could have died someplace in the rock, i lifted all of the rocks to look under them, but never found him. i suppose its possible he's inside a hole in one of the rocks and i simply didn't see him.

what should i do? any opinions? is there a recommended way to make him come out or at least find him? i don't want to disturb him all the time if he's simply scared, but i need to know if he's still alive!

thanks.

Welcome to TONMO.com!

How small is he? Could he have possibly escaped the tank?

I'm not an octopus owner (there are many here), but from what I've read it's fairly common for octos to take a while to acclimate, some longer than others. Four days does seem to be a long time...

Hi there! Welcome to a great source for our ceph obsessions!

If I were you, I would leave him alone! He's probably found an excellent hiding spot and sooner or later curiousity gets the better of em and I know when I'm not sure where a new one I have is, he's usually in a spot where he can see me but I can't!!! Give him some time to get used to his new surroundings! Also, I bet he's out when you're not watching!!!!!!

Carol

he's about 1" (his head). i don't think he could have gotten out. i really took the words "escape proof" to heart when i built this tank. he'd have to be able to pancake down to the thickness of a sheet of paper to get out of this thing.

i'll leave him alone as you suggested, but how long before I should become concerned?

plus, now i'm worried that when i put the rocks back i could have trapped him somplace. although i assume he could dig his way out through the sand if he's really ok. there's about 1.5" below the rocks and they're not piled heavily.

i have the tank lit only by a single 15watt actinic blue flourescent tube. that keeps the tank fairly "night-like" i've had the lights on 24x7 since he went in there. a friend with an octo suggested it to get him used to me. could this be a bad idea?

another question, how do bimacs feel about freshwater ghost shrimp? i already stock a considerable amount of them for my african tank and it would be very convenient to use them here too.

(dunno if it will show up, but i changed my ID to stevesfish now so it matches my email)

Hi,
I'll try to answer two of your questions:

I have a 30 watt fluro bulb and leave it on for about 8 hours to have an octopus "day". The actinic blue isn't quite what you need for an octopus, and leaving it on all the time gives your bimac no day/night. Maybe your bimac would come out more if you would switch out the bulb.

Also, I fed my bimac ghost shrimp until I could find other food he liked, and once in a while still offer a few ghost shrimp. Ollie has always liked ghost shrimp (and any sort of shrimp).

Nancy

thanks nancy, all of my other tanks have a day and night. i guess i was trying to create an "always night" lair for bob (thats what i named him). i'll put it back onto a timer like my other tanks and see what happens. i just turned it off, its 11pm here so he'll get his first night.

here bob, here bob, here boy . . . :shock:

You octo is fine if all else fails put a ghost shrimp in a clear easter egg he'll show up in no time :D

Good deal on changing the light to a regular schedule...that really bugs them when there is always light on! Probably the best thing you can do re: food, is to offer different items all of the time...hit a local baitshop and see what they have...lots of TONMO members are recording good luck with killifish,etc from baitshops. I usually buy my shrimp/ crawfish from there...
Hope he comes out soon!
Greg

Steve:

First, welcome to TONMO!! :D Please be sure to enter your tank in the OCTO Database if you haven't done so already.

My bimac, Tralfaz, took several weeks until he seemed to be comfortable moving about the tank on a regular basis. The most important thing is to be patient and allow him/her to feel secure. As difficult as it is, try not to move things around in thetank and offer food avery couple of days. I would leave the food in over night (he/she may feel more secure eating it then) you can remove the uneaten food in the morning.

I'm not sure about actinic lighting, but you should definitely have a timer on the lights.

One other thing, GET RID OF THE DAMSEL :x Damsels are notorious for being bullies. While your octo would likely eat it when he/she got big enough, the damsel will attack and stress out the bimac all the time. Hope this is of some help.

George

i'd get the damsel out if i could, but its almost impossible without removing the rock, he hides deep inside a cave in the biggest rock.

I know this is going to sound horrible, but I have had to do this in museum tanks before...get a very small trout hook, and bait it, and catch the damsel. Ok, ok...I know...cruel, cruel...but it works.
Greg

wouldnt it be simpler to just pick up the rock and shake him out in another tank? i think going fishing in the octopus tank is a bit extreme.

tonight i think i may have my first evidence that bob (my missing bimac) is in fact alive! :bugout:

that troublesome damsel we've been discussing is missing. i'll have to wait for the lights in the morning to make sure he's not hiding someplace, but if he is truly gone, i'd have to say it was bob. the only other thing in the tank is a serpent star and he would never catch a healthy damsel without help.

i'll let you know.

Well, it sounded like you weren't able to pick up the rock and just shake it out, so I suggested the hook and line...the museum tank we were working on had massive, permanently adhered chunks of live rock, and it did work! (choice of last resort, though)
Hopefully, your clever little bimac seems to have taken care of the problem the natural way...yum yum!
Hope that all works out well!
Greg

i was just trying to avoid picking up the rocks and distubing him again. plus i'm really afraid of putting one back down wrong and trapping him inside.

anyhow, looks like i was wrong. the damsel was simply hiding deep inside a rock and he's out again today.

i'm really starting to worry if bob's actually alive in there or if he died 3 days ago up inside a rock never to be found.

it's a week tomorrow.

He is probably just shy...if he had passed on, three days of decomposition would be setting in...hmmm. Hope for the best!
Greg

well, i haven't seen it in the water chemistry so i'm hoping that means he's ok. unfortunately its hard to tell since i've had fish swim deep inside the live rock and die and because the water doesn't move inside the decomp is very slow and barely noticeable.

tonight, with still no sign of bob, i decided to take a small fresh scallop from the market and attach it to the front glass with a veggie clip on a suction cup. the lights are out in the room and over the tank. lets see if its there in the morning. i don't think the serpent starfish would be bold enough to go for it.

any bets on bob the bimac finally making an appearance? or at least swiping the scallop and running back in his hole?

tomorrow's 1 full week. i have to wonder if we get a few more weeks of winter if he doesn't come out soon. :) (or is that a different animal . . . )

What? You have the Groundhog bimac?

:)

After a week i'd be suspicious, but then when, after a week i have looked deeper in the tank i normally find it alive.

If there is enough room for a damsel to hide in the rock then im sure that is where it will be.

Id suggest trying your bait idea everynight or even through the day, the damsel will be a pest BTW.

Also as yours is so small... it will hide a lot anyway, babies do that and it can probably find enough to eat without leaving the rocks.

Last thing 8) the star will be bold enough! Wait and see LOL

C

well, i decided it was time to know for sure. it's official, bob is gone. i took every piece of rock out of the tank and examined every single hole crack and crevase (took forever). i never found him. i did get that damsel out of the tank though.

i have a funny feeling that serpent star was quite bold. he's looking rather thick in the middle and i didn't feed this week so i have a feeling he may have made a meal of bob. he couldn't have gotten out of the tank, its too well sealed.

any opinions?

Sorry to hear that about your octo. Will you be getting another?

yep, i'm going to try again next weekend (Bob II). I don't give up easily.

i have a credit from an old order at the place i bought bob for just enough to replace him. poor little bob. who knows i may still see him appear one day.

i'm pulling that star from the tank this time so we know Bob II will be safe. I'll add it back in a few months when he's nice and big and can take care of himself.

If the star did consume Bob it is quite likely that he was already dead?
Would also explain why Bob's demise did not become apparent in the form of falling water quality.

i agree. i have this wierd fear that bob may have been hurt when i initially moved the rocks. if he was under one of them he could have been pinned down. i doubth the star could catch him otherwise.

who knows, a few weeks from now i may look in the tank and find bob & bob II.

if he does reappear one day, would they fight with each other? can you keep two together?

Don't know if it would be easy to trap an octopus under stones - I would have thought they would simply ooze out unless you really clunked them, and that is not so easy under water.

if thats the case, then maybe he's still someplace in there.

can anybody tell me how they fare about 5-10 minutes out of water? if he's alive someplace, he was in one of those rocks and i didn't see him.

He should be able to survive 5-10 minutes out of water. So he could possibly still be in one of those rocks. Is there something for him to eat, just in case he's still there? (he can hunt small creatures like amphipods, if you have a lot of them).

Nancy

Make sure and test al lwater parameters before you get a new octo to make sure that it wasn't something there!

Check the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, SG, pH and copper levels

Cheers
C

i've been checking daily. there's nothing. but in the case of this tank, that doesn't necessarily mean much. there's so much live rock that almost anything could be filtered out.