I picked him up yesterday. I have a 55 Gal. tank with about 20 Lbs LR, 1 Yellow Tang, 2 Yellow Fin Damsels and 12 hermit crabs (I mean 4 hermit crabs). 8 of them dissapeared in the last 10 Hours. How do you get them to start eating less expensive food? Not sure what kind he is but he changes color quite a bit, light brown most of the time.

How do you get them to start eating less expensive food?

Most of us accomplish this by not putting them in with expensive food.

Dan

Congrats on your new friend. What concerns me is octopuses are recommended in a species only tank. In other words, all your expensive creatures will be eaten. It's what they do. Please read up in our Cephcare forums. You will find everything you need to know on how to successfully keep one, without sacreficing your expensive other creatures. Some preparation and planning is the best way before you get one, but since you already have him all I can suggest is relocating anything you do not want eaten, to a different tank. I myself would be thrilled that the octopus is eating, but then I am partial to them over other tank mates.

Good luck!

:welcome: , glad you found us! You may want to purchase some more live rock, at least 1 pound per gallon... What is your filtration set up? Octopus produce a large amount of waste. Good luck!

The Damsels were there for the initail setup and the Tang was a donation so I know they will end up as food because I only have the one tank. My filtration is a wet / dry system with the bio-balls and a skimmer is on order and should be here middle of next week.
Thanks for the tip on LR, I am on my way to get more today.

Damsels can be territorial and aggressive. They may not end up as food, they may end up nipping the octopus. They should probably be relocated.

Sounds good, I'll trade them toward LR.

Most stores will stock feeder hermit crabs for you, if you buy them in bulk...ours out here has a tank of several thousand used as feeders, for about 90 cents each. Still expensive, but...octopus are expensive to keep!

Welcome to Tonmo!
greg

A good source of food is Sach's Aquaculture at www.aquaculturestore.com. Depending on the size of your octo you might consider shore shrimp or fiddler crabs.

It sounds like you've got things under pretty good control. What type of skimmer did you order, out of curiosity?

Dan

I found a site that will ship 300 Hermits for $115 which puts them @ 38 cents a piece. www.reeftopia.com.

Find out about the size of these hermit crabs. If they are tiny, you octo may outgrow them and need larger food. Some hermits are larger, just depends.

And welcome to TONMO.com! :welcome:

Nancy

They were tiny and he has no problem eating 10 at a time, although waiting for the crabs to arrive I did get him to start eating frozen krill and frozen silversides.