how hard is it to acclimate bimacs to frozen foods? how do you do it? if you buy an aqaucultured specimen will it have already adjusted to frozen?

Also if you obtain a WC bimac from a LFS, will it take frozen right away?

most octopus wont take frozen food. it would be pretty difficult to acclimate them to do so. Anyway Its better to feed live foods.

where do you guys get your live foods? Where do you hold them?

re you sure most dont take to frozen foods? I have read a few threads regarding feeding and most people say they are taking raw seafoods and frozen foods.

re you sure most dont take to frozen foods? I have read a few threads regarding feeding and most people say they are taking raw seafoods and frozen foods.

Surprised hardly anyone replied.

Most octopuses will eat frozen raw foods. Just defrost it and make sure its fresh. I never heard of having to "acclimate" octopuses to eating frozen foods and never heard of them not accepting frozen foods.

Anyways, live foods aren't the easiest to get if you don't live by the shore. People who do find a lot of hermit crabs and mussels by the sand as well as regular crabs. Otherwise fish markets typically have live lobsters which would usually be too large and unneccesary. Try ethnic fish markets and oriental ones...they usually have varieties of live selections. Im going to ChinATown Philadelphia in a week were they have a few live seafood markets.

Thanks armstrong! Looks like my future bimac will be eating mostly frozen with the occasional live crab or prawn.

Haven't replied to this because I've been out for a while.

Most octopuses will learn to eat frozen food, but there are always a few who don't, who insist on live food.

Offering both at the beginning is a good idea. Even if you feed mostly frozen raw shrimp, try to offer live crabs or shrimp at least a couple of times a week. You can order a small shipment of fiddler crabs and keep them in a large bowl or small aquarium.

Your octo will not only profit nutritionally, but also enjoy the activity of catching and killing live prey. It's a type of enrichment.

Nancy

neither of my octopus have ever ate frozen food. I did get one to eat fresh clam that had been sliced open but thats all. I'm realy big on feeding live food to all my marine life. either its mysid shrimp, small clams,or algea I always take pride in feeding live food to my fish and inverts. As Nancy said its enrichment for you octopus. personaly I've never had luck feeding any marine life anything but live food but it can be done and people have.

-Tom

For me, im going to have to feed a mixture of raw, frozen and live because were I live, live food isn't as easy to get. I have 2 fish markets near me that only sell live lobster which all typical markets and inland stores have. Live crabs come around occassionaly but thats why im going to ChinATown for a few days to collect more choices. If anyone lives in California, there's KoreaTown which im sure has selections.

I have been feeding my bimacs frozen shrimp from the grocery store and they have been taking them readily. I did manage to catch a few tiny crabs off the beach where I live, probably not enough for a meal, but maybe enough for some fun. I haven't given them to them though, because I'm afraid that if I feed them crabs, they'll stop taking the shrimp, which would be a problem since I don't have access to enough live food to keep them alive just on that. Do you think I should try the tiny crab anyway?