Hello, I have looked over this forum for a while and have seen alot of people asking about getting their first octopus tanks. Im not sure if this forum is only for questions. Or if I can start a new thread for this. Many people ask about if the cycling is needed and how to set up their tank, here is how I did it with bimacs.

how to sucessfuly set up a tank and got an octopus without the 3 months of cycling and for under $300 without killing anything(but the octopus will kill stuff). I did this sucessfully for 5 tanks. Unfortunatly this method is conpletly impracticle if you live more than 20 miles from a beach.

First the tank.

at petco or petsmart you can buy an aquarium package which includes 29 gallon tank, filter, hood, light, heater, and net for only $117. Some people say that you need at least a 50 gallon tank for an octopus, I have researched and tryed thru personal experiance and found this to be not true. an octopus that will fit inside a tissue box will be very happy in a 30 gallon tank.


when you buy it, make sure to look in the box to make sure the tank is not broken, happened to me first time and I had to drive back and exchange it.

then buy a steel frame 275lbs supporting stand-$48 probably only at petsmart.

buy 1 10lbs bag live sand-28$ and 1 10lbs bag ground coral substrate.
buy 1 40 gallon tank air pump and airstone with 8ft of tubing - $35

Many people say you MUST have protien skimming, I have found this to be not true so you can save yourself a 120 bucks but it will take a little more work. after feeding your octopus if you use a net to scoop out any debris protien skimming is not needed.

ok set up the tank acording to instructions, get rid of the heater, the bimac does much better in water under 70 degrees farenheight.

make sure to mix the coral and live sand when you put it in.

you should now have an empty aquarium with some live sand and ground coral in it.

now you can fill it.
Here is the part that can eliminate the 3 month cycling. Get a large container(same gallon capacity as your aquarium) and drive down to the beach. fill it with water that is colected in tumultous water 5 feet deep or less. 2 -3 feet is best. -leave the 29 gallon container in your car and use a bucket to make trips back and forth with water. fill the tank. - you can get the octopus on the same day as the water but I recomend waiting a day to make sure there are no problems. make sure the filter is cleaning the water properly and the air pump is oxygenating the water properly. do not worry if there are small shrimp or larvae swimming in the water you collected.

the next day wait until the sun has set and coordinate the time so you get to the beach right at low tide. bring a headlamp, a flashlight is harder but will work. Find the tide pools(usualy at points). search the tide pools for a california 2 spot octopus. You can be 90% sure that any octopus you find will be a California 2 spot. but just look for the 2 blue spots on either side of the head. find one with a bulb the size of a lemon. this means its about half way thru its life. If you can find a smaller one, even better but small ones are harder to spot. You will most likely spot it in the middle of the tidepool hunting, it will look like an out of place rock. Shine your light on it so it freezes. aproach it and grab it. they almost never even budge until you touch it. be gentle while you remove it not to damage the arms or suckers. Place it in a secure container until you get it home. Collect a few submerged rocks with as much stuff growing on them as possibe, these are live rocks and you should gather about 30 lbs worth, this will save you a few hundred dollars, find ones with good crevices or that fit together to form a nice cave. keep them wet until you get home. you will need one more thing. A tide pool sculpin. They are very interesting fish. They also helps to double as a protien skimmer by eating any debris the octopus leaves, they are easy to capture with a net. find one no bigger or smaller than about half the leanght and half the girth of the octopus you have captured, they get along great with octopuses and will not bother each other at all. It is critical to have one as an indicator to the saftey of the water, they are sensitive to water that is not safe. If the water is not right they will breathe eraticly, saves you money on buying water test kits.

Sculpin: http://www.crystalcovestatepark.com/Images/sculpin.gif

the last thing you will need is crabs, california 2 spot will eat crabs anywhere from 1/4 mantle size to 3/2 mantle size. They eat about 1 a night but you can switch them over to frozen shrimp 3 days after capturing it.

when you get home, put the rocks in and the sculpin, then wait 1/2 hour, if the sculpin is looking healthy it should be safe to put the octopus in. make sure to put him in carefully so he dosent ink in the water, ruining it. Ive never had one ink on me. after adding your octopus he will be very distraut and will look disoriented, breathe rapidly, and change to a dark color, and move around the tank climbing up the sides. Do not worry, turn off the lights in the room and leave. let him calm down. He will after about an hour settle down and find a hiding spot. I have never had any problems with escaping or even seen an octopus trying to escape, My current octopus tank has a large hole in the back where the filter goes the octopus could easily fit thru. but he never trys to leave. after a few hours and he has ajusted put a crab in, if he sees it and grabs at it that means he has ajusted, if he ignores it, take it out and leave the lights off another hour. then try again. I feed all of mine 1 crab or frozen shimp each night, they have large apitites. If for the first few days the octopus stays in its cave 24 hours a day that is normal. after a few weeks it should come out when it sees you or at night. feed the sculpin pieces of the frozen shrimp.

using seawater to keep your tank from having to cycle.
after the initial filling, every week take out 5 gallons of water and replace it with either more sea water or water you have mixed yourself. the water from the sea is already been cycled for millions of years so no initial cycling is necesary.

avoiding a protein skimmer:
the sculpin should eat some of the mess the octopus makes but whenever you see crab shells on the ground or octopus waste, scoop it out with a net.

remember, only 1 octopus per tank

I would like to hear if anybody has any conflicting information. And how other people have set up their octopus tanks. From my experiece they are not extremely hard creatures to keep and I am very happy to say I have never had one die on me. good luck on setting up your tank.

Im sorry if this kind of posting is not allowed. I am new to this forum.

alex

I would like to hear if anybody has any conflicting information. And how other people have set up their octopus tanks. From my experiece they are not extremely hard creatures to keep and I am very happy to say I have never had one die on me. good luck on setting up your tank.

Im sorry if this kind of posting is not allowed. I am new to this forum.

alex

:welcome:

Its not so much about "conflicting information" but how much margin for safety you have. It seems to me your technique is full of "ifs:" you can get by without a protein skimmer if the octopus never inks. You can get by with a tiny tank if the octopus doesn't grow very big. You can get by without sealing the top if the octo doesn't try to escape. Those things have happened to TONMO'ers in the past and just because they haven't yet happened to you doesn't mean you're safe (I wonder how many times Cory Lidle made the 'tight turn' at 120 knots before ever hitting a building?).

Preparing for these contingencies requires patience, maturity and husbandry; encouraging aquarists to be professional is good for them and above all for the animal. We have a responsibility to the animal to give them as good a home as reasonably possible. You can do the bare minimum to scrape by most of the time, or you can go all the way. Most of us on TONMO advocate the latter.

Dan

Hi Alex and welcome to TONMO.com! :welcome:

Yes, it's OK to post your experiences in keeping octopuses. I don't doubt that you've been able to keep octopuses in this manner, but you've been very lucky. Most of us have experienced octos inking. Not many have expereinced their octos crawling out, but this is because we advise the tanks to be well sealed. We began to take this approach after losing a few bimacs (two-spot octopuses) to excape in the first years of this forum.

Yes, you could get away with a 30 gallon, provided your octopus doesn't grow too large, and some of our TONMO.com bimacs have grown large. However, if you live near the ocean, you always have a way out - return your octopus to the sea. Most of our octo keepers are too far inland and must rely on a tank set up designed with some margin of error.

Nancy

I will keep my trap shut on this one. Suffice to say, the conditions are less than perfect, which is what we actually strive for, so we can observe the octopus in it's natural habitat.
I suppose you could keep a hundred cats in one trailer too, and they would live...but...


Greg

This seems to much like the "Mimic Babies for sale-cheap" thread.

"an octopus that will fit inside a tissue box will be very happy in a 30 gallon tank."

Could you please elaborate on this statement. If an a ceph eats more than a grouper, has high surface area skin without the protection of scales, and one of the highest metabolic rates in the animal kingdom -how can a shoe box size animal live in a 30 gallon?

30 gallon sump of a wet/dry -maybe.

I will discuss more if and when I get a response. I applaud everyone for being so nice and considerate, but I have to address this.

I think people are taking the wrong approach on this by trying to defend the old fashioned way of keeping. everybody believes that just because it is not what we have all been told that it is automatically wrong. But in truth, have any of you even tryed this method before? You probably have just tryed the way everybody before you has done so you wouldn't know if it was the truth or not. So maybe you should give it a chance.

Oh, sure. Despite the fact that most of us:

A: do not live near the ocean
B: have decades of experience with different marine animals
C: have kept and maintained and even bred cephs

We should listen to :

Loss of filtration, lack of oxygenation, lack of space for normal healthy octopus lifestyle, etc, etc, etc.

I guess it comes down to whether you want to be an "octopus keeper" or someone who actually cares about them.

Your choice.
Mine is made.

Greg

I think people are taking the wrong approach on this by trying to defend the old fashioned way of keeping. everybody believes that just because it is not what we have all been told that it is automatically wrong. But in truth, have any of you even tryed this method before? You probably have just tryed the way everybody before you has done so you wouldn't know if it was the truth or not. So maybe you should give it a chance.

He doesn't have a special technique or method to be tried; rather he's going cheap and so far hasn't killed anything (or has he? Many adult bimacs are larger than that attained by the ones he's kept). You could probably put an octopus in a five gallon bucket with a power filter and it might survive for a couple months: should you try this "method" before concluding that its not the right way to do it?

It comes back to what Greg said: You can keep 100 cats alive in a trailer, but should you? Is keeping that many cats in a trailer a valid husbandry technique? Do we have the right to condemn the cats-in-the-trailer method without trying it? Get my drift? :wink:

Dan

very active forum,

I do not wish to get into arguments with people about what makes octopuses healthy. Some of you say I have been very lucky, I dont believe so.

When I first started octopus aquariums about 12 years ago, I knew nothing, I did not look at the internet, and got all my information from working at the marine institute where I live where I was in charge of feeding the institues 2 bimacs. I wanted my own so i tried the expensive method. 500$ and a store bought octopus. and while I dont doubt that it works, I kept my first octopus alive for 1 year before it died of old age. I have found, over years of trial and error that allot of the stuff that people claim is an absolute necesity is not so necesary.

The tank is among the worst of it. I have kept the same type and size of octopus in a 100, 50, 30 and even 20 gallon tank and they all do fine. Smaller than that and they become stressed which I noticed thru color diference. The rule I use is, place a thin(1mm- a dull pencil) line exactly at water level and then add the octopus, if the water is more than 1.5 mm heigher than when you added him then the tank is to small.

One person said I recomended not oxegenating, I did not. oxygen is one of the most important aspects to the well being. I think I recomended a pump for a 40 gallon tank.

protien skimming, does nothing for the octopus that the sculpin and a little work with your net after feeding wont do. I have tried with and without, I am not confirming this yet, because I have not tested enough, but skimming may have detrimental effects in the long term health of the octopus.

As far as I knew, part of the 50 gallon minimun 'rule' was because of the mess that gets made and not all down to the size the octopus will grow to? Although that must be a large factor.

but skimming may have detrimental effects in the long term health of the octopus.

*Crash Stop*

In the case here, where many people learning about reefkeeping and the care of cephs, please, please, please, give this line absolutely no credit.

So, if you vacuum your house, it effects your health? I suppose so does flushing the toilet or doing the dishes? Come on, get real.

:welcome: And I think you've leapt into an interesting discussion. I think you have hit a nerve a bit (your initial post suggested that you expected that to happen.) I think your results are interesting, and worth considering, although I also agree with the responses that it's better for the animals to avoid encouraging people to do the "bare minimum." Without meaning to question your experience, there are a lot of people who post here having bought an octopus without any preparation at all, so there is a lot of evidence that octos die often in some setups, and the recommended setups have largely evolved from that information. The fact that your setup seems to work as well is probably worth looking at, but as one person comparing your experience to the collective knowledge, you're in a bit of a strange position.

I think it's worth asking questions like "what is Alex doing that's better than the unprepared folks whose octos invariably die quickly?" and "Is it possible that some of the recommendations are more apocryphal than proven?" as well as "has Alex just been lucky?" On the other hand, Alex, you proposed a checklist that's an alternative to the traditional TONMO approach, rather than suggesting your experience be integrated into it somehow, which turns out to be a bit confrontational. I understand that you read a bunch of stuff here and found that it doesn't match your experience, so you wanted to present the alternative, but now that you have, I would encourage discussion of "how can we continue to give the best recommendations we can to octo owners."

The sculpin will eat the food, and waste from the octo(debatable, IMO), but he will excrete that as waste himself. If he eats, that, then he isn't getting nutrients. Also, many beaches have laws about removing live rock, and living creatures. I'm sure if I saw a guy with a bucket, and a light attached to his forehead at midnight along the beaches, i'd be a little freaked out.

Cheap usually isn't better (if not worse) than going all out and doing things correctly. We are trying to mimic the ocean, and the ocean's protein skimmer is waves, which create foam, etc.

:welcome: Alex,

I have a couple of questions... what is the temperature of the tank? You are recommending keeping Southern California marine life (I used to live in Long Beach for 14 years...). Cold water marine life is very different from the type of tanks that most people keep. This may account for some of the discrepancies on this thread. I know, I had a cold water tank for 10 years. I will say this about protein skimmers. I was unable to keep red sea urchins (Stronylocentrotus franciscanus successfully (longer than a week) until I added a protein skimmer. This also extended the life of sea hares (Aplysia) and sea cucumbers in my tank.

Other than that :welcome: and you will find us to be a lively bunch, dedicated to keeping cephalopods healthy and happy.

Ok, first off about the protien skimmers, I DID NOT SAY that I am sure it hurts your tank. I am just stating that I have not noticed any diference in the longevity or behavior of octopuses with them, then those without them. and this is a cold water tank setup not a tropical, PS's function diferently depending on the water temperature

and cuttlegirl makes an excelent point, I absolutly do not recomend this setup for anything but a cold non tropical tank. You will almost definately kill any tropical water fish or octopuses if you use my set up with warm water.

Yes, I would expect sea urchins need good skiming because of how their resperation system works.

the tempereture in all my octopus tanks at this moment is 68 degrees farenheight.

Sculpins do eat octopus fecal matter, and they also eat, pieces of food the octopus leaves, the reason I sugest them is that when they excrete waste, it is in a small solid clump that sinks to the botom and stays together which is very easy to scoop out with a net.

some beaches do have laws about removing animals, and I dont advocate breaking the laws. Live rock is extremly expensive though, and there is several hundred tons of it at the tide pools where i live.

Cold water means you don't have to keep the tank water clean and pure?
Hogwash.

Look, I am not attacking you in a personal sense at all, and the fact that you have had some limited success with your methods is fine and dandy, but we do have to flavour the topic with hard won experience. We have had members keep octopus's (you can spell the multiple any way you want, it's all correct) in a variety of tank setups...some going very, very frugal and being happy with six months, to those of us who have decided to make sure we are providing the BEST POSSIBLE habitat for the captive octopii.

Are your experiences valid? Of course. Is it a guideline for people who are new to keeping cephalopods? No. You have to remember, there is nothing wrong with new ideas (remember the use of skimmers in the 70's?), but they have to be proven, lest they kill off a number of captive animals and frighten away new ceph keepers.

Greg

you know thats not what I said,

and this is in no way a minimum,

If anybody wants the tank setup for how to keep an octopus from dying I can give it to you but the point is this is not the minimum at all.

Here is one thing I have learned from being landlocked for the past year and a half... Before living in Long Beach, I lived in Hawaii for three years. I have had a salt water tank since I was about 12 years old (I won't tell you how long ago that was :shock: ). It is sooo much cheaper when you live near the beach. It is also very easy to go to the beach quickly if something goes wrong (you run out of food, you need to do a water change, you need some more seaweed, the list goes on...)

When you are landlocked, you have to plan in advance. For example, I knew that my cuttlefish eggs were going to hatch, so I bought mysids online and had them shipped to me about a week ago. Meanwhile, the mysids are cannabilizing each other and the eggs haven't hatched. There's $35 down the drain, but I didn't want to take a chance and order the mysids after the cuttle eggs hatch and have to wait a couple of days. Also, I ran out of shore shrimp and while I ordered them on Monday, they aren't arriving until tomorrow. Luckily my adult cuttles eat frozen krill, but they were eating several shore shrimp a day and are a little upset that they aren't getting their favorite food. While the initial set up costs can vary, the biggest cost of keeping a ceph, at least for me, has been feeding it...

you know thats not what I said,
and this is in no way a minimum,


I have kept the same type and size of octopus in a 100, 50, 30 and even 20 gallon tank and they all do fine

This is absurd. I guess if anyone would like to follow Alex's advice; get a bimac and put it in a 20 gallon tank, go for it! Caveat emptor!

Perhaps Nancy would be so kind as to post the picture of Ollie before he climbed the Empire State Building?

Dan

you know thats not what I said,

and this is in no way a minimum,

If anybody wants the tank setup for how to keep an octopus from dying I can give it to you but the point is this is not the minimum at all.



Then why did you post it?

Once again, you must realize that people read these forums to learn about octopus, octopus's, octopii (or whatever makes you happy)...and you can not present unfounded information and expect everyone to go "oh, o.k.".

I understand that you have had some success with keeping your octo's in tanks that were not done to the normal standards. Fine. But you have to think about the bulk of the Tonmo crowd not having the same access to natural seawater, natural food, etc that you do.
Like Cuttlegirl has stated, living inland changes everything. Our care charts and articles are based on a vast amount of knowledge, spanning a lot of years, for the best results in keeping cephs.
Anyone can keep a bichir. Not everyone can breed them.



Greg

Here's Ollie :smile:

She was one of several bimacs that got rather large (but was very friendly). I found that both the NRCC and Octopets reported differences in sizes of adult bimacs. Some do get much larger than others.

Nancy

thats a big octopus,

That octopus would not be happy in a 30 gallon tank. But he also will not fit inside a tissue box.

of all of you saying that theres a 50 gallon minimum for any octopus I would bet most(if not all) of you have never attempted keeping one in a 30 gallon. You havent tried it, so how can you say it is, to quote one person, "absured". I have kept many octopuses over time, half of them in 30 gallon tanks, all of them Bimacs. I had one that almost made it to 3 and a half years old in a 30 gallon tank with no skimmer, but that one I got as a new hatchling from a friend. Just try it before you cover your ears and scream lies!

Ok, this is getting ridiculous! No one here has called you a liar. They have pointed out that the chances of success for your method to work for most people who read this forum is slim to none, whether because of lack of constant access to the ocean from which the octopus came, or because of inexperience. You say you have a lot of experience in keeping octos. Fine. The people who have been responding to you have between them many, many years of experience, and have helped many people learn what they need to learn to not only keep an octopus alive, but to ensure that it has the quality of life which is as good as it can possibly be. That is the least we can do for these little animals who are in our care. It is also our responsibility on Tonmo to give the best possible advice on how others can do the same. All of us take that responsibility seriously.

Let's clarify some points.

First of all, yes, even TONMO.com people have kept bimacs in 30 gallon tanks. That was before we realized that they needed more room and some of them would grow large enough to require the 50 gallons as a minimum. Most octo keepers want to provide room to explore and play, so we find many putting bimacs and similar-sized octopuses in even larger tanks. What we're aiming at is "good animal husbandry", not the minimum we can get by with.

Secondly, how big is a tissue box? I guess I haven't bought tissue for years, but boxes were various sizes, and yes, Ollie would have fit in some of them.

Thirdly, you say you kept a bimac for almost 3 1/2 years. This baffles me, since the longest lifespan I've heard of (and not verified) up till now is 1 1/2 years, in a lab somewhere. Bimacs are a few months old when their owners get them, and it's an accomplishment to have them live with you for 10 or 11 months. Over three years is getting into the lifespan of a Giant Pacific Octopus, not a bimac. There must be some confusion about the species or about the lifespan.

Nancy

You havent tried it, so how can you say it is, to quote one person, "absured".

Have you tried keeping the hundred cats in the trailer? That's probably a poor analogy, here's a better one: You could keep one cat alive for years in a pet carrier as long as it had food and water. You're telling me that if I haven't tried it I shouldn't knock it.

The bottom line is that Ollie was a big bimac and there's no way in Hell that he would be happy in a 30 gallon tank. According to scientists, getting a big bimac isn't rare. So is it a good idea to get a bimac and put him in a 30, or even a 20 as you suggest in one of your posts? You're right, I do think it is "absured."

Dan

I would bet most(if not all) of you have never attempted keeping one in a 30 gallon. You haven't tried it, so how can you say it is, to quote one person, "absured".
34103411

I uploaded a large photo so that you can click on it to zoom and see this is a bimac from the color, mantle shape and size.

This is my 1st octo in a 30 gallon from back in April 1992 (the second photo is the date stamp from the back put on by the film processor (Eckerd's).

(This is the same tank that I have in the image gallery with my cuttlefish -Bill.)

I kept the octo in the 30 gallon and have since learned better. He did live until he died of old age. But I would never do it again. He constantly ran the edges of the tank, like a caged lion. I figured that he didn't need swimming space like a regular fish. These animals are much more intelligent than all fish, and need more room. Not to mention keeping up with the bio load was awful. I had over 4 years of saltwater experience back then, not counting freshwater, so I still wasn't a newbie like most people asking for info here.

By the way...someone needs to tell the NRCC that they are wasting their time with all that equipment and effort. Also inform Dr. James Wood that he didn't need that doctorate and that his husbandry articles are incorrect.

I kept a GPO in a five gallon tank for two decades.

No really.

About as believable, no?

I never meant to insinuate that Alex was a liar at all. Just that the minimum care standards are not what we are striving for...we are looking to expand the knowledge of cephs, not limit it. I hear this argument for lowered filtration, smaller tank size, substandard cycling all the time. Reef keepers who don't need bright lights, skimmers? Nah. Fish keepers who feed nothing but frozen. Sure.

Then they see a really well kept tank, and they can't figure out why their's doesn't look good. Hmmm.

My real worry here is how quickly the Octo was introduced to the new tank. Even if you are very careful with the setup and match temp and other perameters exactly to the ocean, transporting and moving the live rock and such will always cause some die-off of bacteria and other organisms from within the rock creating substandard water conditions. IMO there is always a cycle even if it is a small one. When I setup my 3 gallon pico reef I used: live rock, live sand, and even "live" water (which I took from my very well established Octo tank) and there was still a cycle. It was very short, 2 to 3 weeks, but still a cycle regardless with a standard diatom bloom and all. I'm always up for hearing other peoples experiences in keeping Octopus, and most times you can takes little bits of that information to use in your own regimen. All in all, I think Alex was just trying to help especially for those who don't have a ton of cash. He's just using methods so very unorthadox from what we've all seen as the standard. So he's having to endure some heat from the Tonmo crew. So Alex, as someone else said earlier, this isn't a personal stab at you. This is all about the Octopus and it's well being that we're so worried about.

Also Nancy, Damn, I didn't know Ollie was THAT big until I saw a point of reference. (your hand) That's a huge Bimac!! I would almost say a 50 gallon is too small and a 30 gallon WOULD be a tissue box.:mrgreen:


Paul

Then they see a really well kept tank, and they can't figure out why their's doesn't look good. Hmmm.

It reminds me of another member who has posted pictures of a 30 gallon eclipse that he keeps bimacs in. Everything in the tank is covered with green hair and every other nuisance algae imaginable. The kind of tank everyone should be able to look at--experienced or not--and see nutrient export issues.

Before keeping any animal, we have to ask ourselves what kind of a home we can really give it. It isn't enough to do the bare minimum to keep it alive just so we can save a few bucks. An animal shouldn't be punished for its owner's lack of resources or interest.

Dan

I think everyone is making too big a deal out of this. First, if his system works for him that is great, but it might not work for everyone. I've kept bimacs is a 30 gallon tank with just an undergravel filter and it did fine, it lived a long time and laid eggs. Who is to say what size tank is best. I've seen people post about wanting to keep or have kept officinalis in 150g tanks which I think is way to small I also have seen it done in public aquariums. However, officinalis can grow as large as 15-18inch which would be way to small for a 150g but in those tanks they do not get that large only maybe 6-8inches. A lot of animals grow to the size of there tank. Now that may be wrong to keep it in a tank that small morally, but is it bad for the animal, possibly? I could probably keep a dwarf octo in a glass bottle for his who life if I changed the water every two minute, but who would want to. People have different skill levels a person who is just starting out should not start off with a bare bones system. However, someone with more knowledge could do it. Each animal has its own requirments and curtain species of octos can deal with confined spaces (bimacs) because they live in dens while I would not keep a wonderpus/mimic in a small tank because they are more nomadic. Anyway those are my thoughts please don't shoot me or anything :smile:

Why would we shoot you for that? :smile:

Actually, these are NOT "new" ideas...these are the same old rehash of what people did early on in keeping marine aquariums...before we found out why it didn't work so well.

Maximum care= Maximum results.

That is just how it works.

Try going to a Yankee game in Yankee stadium, stand in the middle of their bleachers, and cheer for the Red Socks. You will be lucky to get out on your own power.

I think alot of this, I am sorry to say, can also be attributed to proper forum etiquette.

Many people say you MUST have protien skimming, I have found this to be not true so you can save yourself a 120 bucks...


avoiding a protein skimmer...


I would bet most(if not all) of you have never attempted keeping one in a 30 gallon. You havent tried it...


allot of the stuff that people claim is an absolute necesity is not so necesary.


In most areas you don't stand up on a soapbox and tell everyone that they are wrong, that what they are informing people on is "not true", and that "what people claim is a absolute necessity is not so".

TONMO is a great group of people trying to help others with less experience successfully select, raise and maintain cephalopods.

Some things can work for some people. We are all VERY careful to be sure to give caveats for things that have worked in the past - so not to misinform anyone. Half the information is just enough to be dangerous.

I give you points for actually coming back on and defending your stance. I thought your thread was just made to incite a riot - it was worded so.

I am not attacking you personally, I just want you to know that this type of response is very rare and must be instigated.

I would be very interested in hearing some statistical data on using seawater. I live in Florida and I never have used it in fear of the dying phytoplankton causing a spike.

I would be happy to give statistical data on using a protein skimmer -doing before and after nitrate tests and O2 levels. I would much rather supply this than state that "it may be detrimental..".

This information will be online and searchable for a long time. We all know people will say "I don't have to cycle...they said it on TONMO."

People have different skill levels a person who is just starting out should not start off with a bare bones system. However, someone with more knowledge could do it.

But the original poster is essentially saying: "Hey, all you newbies: you don't need to bother with complex filters or big tanks and you don't need to wait for your tank to cycle, either! Get a glass box--as small as is convenient--fill it with ocean water and rocks and put your animals in!"

Im sorry I dont have time to look thru all these posts, I never thought I would get such oposition. You are all really into sparing absolutly no expence. later this weekend i will take the time to read all this.

Im sorry I dont have time to look thru all these posts, I never thought I would get such oposition. You are all really into sparing absolutly no expence. later this weekend i will take the time to read all this.

No problem. I don't understand most of this last paragraph that you wrote, so any clarification would be very, very helpful.

As stated before, you will find that you think of as being "a new way to keep cephs" was attempted from the 1800's and on, until we learned how to actually correctly maintain them in captivity.

Research, such a good thing.

Greg

Research, such a good thing.


You know, they conceal that information in books. :wink:

You are all really into sparing absolutly no expence.

Its not so much that we're hog-wild about spending money, just that we're adamant about making the very best homes that we can for our animals. Most of my components (overflow, biofilter, feeder tanks, skimmer manifold, spraybar, dividers, auto-topoff) are DIY. Most of the big-ticket items that aren't DIY (sump tank, return pump, skimmer, skimmer pump) were bought used for pennies on the dollar. Then again for me, tinkering and putting things together is just as enjoyable as having a cephalopod!

I like to think of it in terms of these three words:

Quality, Fast, Cheap.

Whenever you build a system you can pick any two words but you can't have all three :) I think we've all jumped on you because you seem to be advocating fast and cheap over quality.

Dan

I like to think of it in terms of these three words:

Quality, Fast, Cheap.

Whenever you build a system you can pick any two words but you can't have all three :) I think we've all jumped on you because you seem to be advocating fast and cheap over quality.

You could have saved NASA a lot of grief (http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/business/spear_report_000313.html) if you'd told them that in the late 80s...

I called in sick for work today so I can enjoy my friday playing CS and unfortunately arguing about octopuses. I feared that this would happen. Believe it or not, its not easy arguing against an entire forum. So please dont refrase what I say to make it sound ridiculos and use completely unrelated comparisons like, 100 cats in a trailler or kennel or baseball games.

Most of the stuff Im saying is actualy found in books too.

Alex, certainly some of the stuff you have proposed can be found in books. Mostly dating from the pre-70's, those old tomes that talked about the ridiculous need for cycling, etc.

Your ideas are nothing new, they have just been disproved over time with experience.

It is too bad that you are getting such a negative baptism here though, I am sure you are interested in cephs, their habits and habitats, which is what Tonmo is really all about. Not doing anything fast or easy, because knowledge never is.

Greg

Il try my best now

@ post#23 by sorseress,
I know your not calling me a liar, thats just an expression meaning that your unwilling to consider anything that could change your ways. The chances of sucesss are not slim to none either, If you follow my set up to the letter, 90% chance your octopus will die of old age happy as one has ever been. I implore you to try it before you give a survival chances.

@ post # 24 by Nancy
the tissue boxes I use are 4"x3.5"x3.5" Thats what everybody else uses right?

she almost lived to be 3 1/2, not quite, I think she was 3 months from being 3 1/2, But she did not grow anywhere near the size of Ollie. and I have heard of California 2 spots getting to 3 1/2 quite commonly but they always die soon after.

@post 25 by DHslop
If one got as big as ollie It would not be happy in a 30 gallon, but as I said the maximum I keep them in a 30 gallon for is until they no longer fit in a basic 4"x3.5"x3.5" tissue box(and no I dont try to stuff them in to see).

@ post 26 by Illithid
Ok, I am happy to discuss with you because you have actualy tried it. If the octopus was not happy in there and did pace the edges. It is because he is in a 30 tall, and its not a rectangle either, tanks other than a rectangle make octopuses feel closed in. if he was in a rectangular 30 long, I am very sure you would not have observed pacing.

"getting to 3 1/2 quite commonly but they always die soon after..."


Wow. Obviously, all of us who have been keeping bimacs for a number of years are totally out of some loop. ? .

My current octopus tank has a large hole in the back where the filter goes the octopus could easily fit thru. but he never trys to leave.


Do you have any photos of your tank setup and octo?

We have a entire section called "Tank Talk" that people like me, Dan, etc. post photos of our tank setups with explainations and details of special DIY parts.

We also have a Photo Journal section where everyone posts images of thier cephs and their hatchlings. You don't need any special reason to post your octo photos, everyone just likes to see everyone else's babies.

I would love to see yours.

Yes, I second Illithid in inviting you to post on Journals and Photos and add your tank to the Tank Owners' Database.

I guess I was thinking of a larger tissue box! Thanks for giving the dimensions.

One of the other people who had a large bimac at the same time I did had to look for a new home for his octopus because it was outgrowing its tank. As I mentioned, few of our members have the luxury of being near the ocean (I'd like that myself). Anyway, his LFS took it and kept it in a larger tank. The problem is that when you begin to see you'll need a bigger tank, there's not enough time to cycle a larger one.

By the way, that's Ollie at the top of the TONMO.com page, when she younger and not quite so large.

Nancy

post 28 by phuntoon

I dissagree, all cycling time is eliminated, but just to be sure, i always wait tilll the next day after filling. I agree my methods are definately uinorthidox. I agree about the well being of octopuses being important,

@ post 29 by DHyslop
I have never had serious algae problems in any of my tanks.

@ post 30 by marine bio guy,
no oposition here, thanks

@post 31 by cthulhu77
oh, no when the marine institute i worked at anounced that they would be getting an octopus, they had a custom made 150 gallon wide that looked like a refrigerator, and state of the art filtration skimming and i worked and entire weekend getting it ready, it was only then that we realized that even at full size, the octopus would probably rarely be seen in such a large tank. these are definately new ways of keeping octopuses. maximum care = maximum results: until a certain point which my setup defines.

more tomorow

ok, I will look at this "tank chat" thing and submit photos of my octopus.

Did the marine institute (which one? we have members from just about all of them) did you hail from? If they have records of a bimac that lived to be 3.5 years old, it would change a lot of history...

nah, it wasent theres that lived to be almost 3 1/2, it was mine, if you want to know more about it. It was a female, that I raised from eggs laid by a wild captured bimac, It was empregnated before it was caught so we dont know who the father was. To be fair though, I am not 100 percent sure it was a bimac, it looked eggsactly like a bimac, but it was missing the 2 spots next to its head, or they were under developed. I fed it frozen shrimp and crabs, and always made sure it was well stimulated during feeding and at night.

O.K. Now I will pull off the gloves.

I find your "information" extremely dubious, and don't believe it. So, in a sense, I guess I am saying that you are in fact, lying, though my hands are not over my ears or my eyes.

Or my mind.

Greg

Most of the stuff Im saying is actualy found in books too.

Can you please give specific references?

@cthulhu77: You can believe what you want, but I have no way to prove to you that I did actualy own an octopus that lived to be 3.5 years old. I had taken pictures of it, but it just looks like any other bimac, and I have no Idea where those ended up anyways. If you dont want to believe me, i dont blame you, after all, they say you should believe half of what you read, 1/3 of what you see on TV, and none of what other people tell, you, Even more so over the internet.

@Jean

sure, Ill post some tomorow night If I have time.

Alex, we deal in facts, not "he said, she said".

If you can not prove any of your commentary, why did you make it? I for one am extremely puzzled by this whole thread. You state that you have maintained octopus bimaculatus in less than perfect conditions, yet they somehow lived longer than any on record, anywhere.

Come on.

Greg

The conflicting accounts are the best. He kept a bimac for 3 1/2 years. Then it wasn't a bimac that he kept for 3 1/2 years. In the post above its a bimac again.

I still can't wait to find out what aquarium he worked for! With all the folks on here I'm surprised a coworker hasn't chimed in. :lol:

Dan

I dont see any point in arguing with you anymore, its going no where. Im telling you I kept what I am almost completely sure was a bimac that lived almost three and one half years before dying. You can believe it if you want. how many people are members in this forum anyways, If there are as many as you claim, and members from every institute which i find unbelieveable at best. im sure that one of them will confirm this. I bragged to everyone there about it. Has anybody ever worked at the Ocean institute of Dana Point California ?http://www.ocean-institute.org/index2.html
If so please, be heard, you will likely have heard about the 3 and 1/2 year old bimac, just say so. Ill post those references to prove my sources to jean tomorow. and then I want no more of this argument. It is a big waste of time. I struck a huge nerve with my thread and I dont like arguing against an entire forum, it is tiring and stressfull. Good night.

Hi folks, I've been monitoring this kinda loosely. As Webmaster of this site it's sometimes helpful that I actually have zero ceph-keeping experience, because I can be somewhat objective. For the 6 1/2 years that I've run this site I've relied on our resident experts to provide guidance and educate the masses on what it takes to keep a ceph... I am among the masses and I can say that I've learned quite a bit just by "listening" to what people have contributed on these forums and from the articles we have under Ceph Care.

While many community members have come and gone, there is a strong core here from all points of the world, with extensive ceph-keeping experience. From that community of experts, several common themes have prevailed. Those themes have pretty much become TONMO.com guidelines on keeping cephs. One such guideline is that a ceph really shouldn't be kept in anything less than a 55-gallon tank. And it is commonly accepted and understood that a captive bimac won't live for much more than 1 year, if things go well.

I cannot understand how it could benefit an octopus to have a smaller tank than a larger one. Their natural habitat has no boundries, so I'm unclear how restriction can be a good thing. I can only imagine advocating for as large a tank as humanly possible, but with a minimum of 55 gallons, again, purely based on what I've learned from countless folks on these forums. Can an octopus "fit" into a smaller tank? Yes, but the conventional wisdom is that it's restrictive, and therefore TONMO.com simply does not condone anything less than 55 gallons.

There are two big problems with this thread and as such I'm locking it... those problems include:

1) unsupported advocacy for ceph keeping guidelines which are outside the boundries of what TONMO.com condones

2) While I strongly believe everyone here started with the best of intentions, this thread is beginning to lose (or has lost) its civility.

Alexfevery, if you have any solid, verifiable references or proof you'd like to cite here, please PM it to me or email me at email@tonmo.com and I'll post it to the end of this thread, and perhaps we can ultimately start a new one if compelling information emerges on this. I appreciate you sharing your input and experiences here, but I do feel a responsibility to ensure that years of study and shared experiences do not get compromised by one person with somewhat radically different ideas on responsible ceph-keeping. That's not meant as a knock, it's just an observation that your approach is quite different than what TONMO.com has been advocating.

I'll suggest that anyone reading this thread looking for guidelines for ceph-keeping should visit our Articles on Ceph Care (see top navigation), and take anything stated here with a huge grain of sea-salt.

I am not against broadening our thinking or infusing new learning into our conventional wisdom. Very much the opposite. However, when a new idea tests the limits of what TONMO.com has established as being humane, I believe it will take a lot of convincing and evidence to shift the mindset.

Personally, even if it is to be verified that this bimac was kept for 3 1/2 years in a small tank, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be advocated anyway. What is suggested here is quite unnatural, as the natural habitat for an octopus has no boundries. I can't imagine coming to a conclusion that 55 gallons is too large for a minimum.

I have rated this thread with one star. Note that although this thread is locked, you can still rate it.

Any thoughts or input, please PM me, thanks!