I have a 24 gallon nano cube that i have made small modifications to in order to keep an octopus, i would keep one in my 55, but it would be too expensive to purchase all that is required for the sump and sealing off the aquarium from escape. I was wondering, what is the largest possible species of octopus i can keep in a 24 gallon?

I dont reccomend anything in a 24g octo-wise. But if you aren't ready to pay for a full octo tank in your 55 then I am guessing an O.Briaerus (did i spell that right?), or dwarf octopus might work. Or you could start a baby bimac out in the small tank and move it up to the big one when you have the money to set up your 55g.

how much time would i have if i started it out as a baby in the 24?

I wouldn't think very long since the life span of octopus is pretty short...you could probably get a good couple months in though

...the problem is it is going to take a couple of months to cycle the big tank! If you're going to put a baby octopus in a small tank, you really need to have the big tank circulating the same day.

Dan

ive had my 55 gallon up and runing for over a year now, the small tank has been up a little over a month.

A Biareus octopus can NOT be kept in a 24 gallon tank! It would get way to big.

-Tom

You could start a baby briareus in the small tank, giving the small tank a couple of more months to cycle before you get the octopus. Or, put the briareus in your large, already-cycled tank. A briareus gets fairly big: up to 5 inches for the body, but almost two feet for the arms. I suppose you could put it in a 55, but a 75 would give it more room.

My experience with briareus would suggest that it could live in the small tank until it was 4-4 1/2 months old. So a couple of months, depending on how old it was when you got it.

As far as lifespan, you might have a briareus for 10 months, if all goes well.

Nancy

any ideas on where i could get a briareus?

Looks like the guy on Ebay selling briareus actually Tom's Tropicals from the resources on the ceph page. I contacted him about a vulgaris. They is using the same photo from Tom's Caribbean and are in the same location.
The email I got was from Dana though.

it's unfortunate because my local fish stores only seem to carry blue-ring octos, and the one that does ship other kinds of octos never knows what the species name is from the person shiping...just that it's going to be small