I am trying to determine when I should change the water in my tank. I can see the Nitrate gradually increasing as I feed my octo.

What levels do other people allow before doing a water change?

A test today shows 10ppm Nitrate or 2.2ppm nitrate-nitrogen.

Thanks,
Josh

Against all you ever read about marine life some intersesting things have been written about octopuses as far as pollution is concerend.... being that they are virtually indestructable once aclimatised to a tank.

If you read this article by James Wood he reports of some interesting water quality facts from Dr Hanlon... http://is.dal.ca/~ceph/TCP/octokeep.html (States that they will tolerate nitrate up to 500ppm)

The most important water quality issues are to avoid heavy metals and low oxygen levels!

Just remeber that ammonia and nitrite are more toxic than nitrate so try to avoid them!

C

Against all you ever read about marine life some intersesting things have been written about octopuses as far as pollution is concerend.... being that they are virtually indestructable once aclimatised to a tank.

I can verify this statement. I have a 40 gallon tank. It has been up and running for almost a year and a half now and is perfectly stable. Ive got an O. bimaculoides in there and I have not done a water change for four and a half months. Who knows what my water quality is, I only check the temperature. My octopus is very active and I see him swimming around the tank everyday. If he wasn't happy with the water quality I would notice a change in his behavior. He seems fine, and I dont plan on doing a water change any time soon. Call me a bad aquarist but it works.

pat

Heh
where have you been hiding Pat?!
LOL

Haha ive been around. I've been lurking here and over at the reefcentral but I havnt posted anything in a long long time. My octopus is doing great, he has become very active and very social even though i havnt done a bit of tank work in months. When the urchins knock over a rock it usually takes me a week before i stop being lazy and reach in the tank and fix it. How are your tanks colin? Are you still cephless?

Well, i got two bimacs in August and one died pretty soon after that. the other I still had up until last week. I am making room for new babies so i can get a chance to keep several and grow them up hopefully for breeding. The bimac went to a friend of mine here.

My other tanks are doing great though... Will post some pics this weekend i hope.

Glad to know your octo is doing well too!

C

Hi!

I can back up rudiger's statement- I've had spans where I didn't do water changes for over a year and never had a problem keeping cephalopods. And, like a bad scientist, I didn't check nitrates.

Lately however, I've been growing several metric tons of Caulerpa in my tank, and they may be limiting the nitrate buildup.

Cheers, Jim

Hi all!

I was hoping to find the Nitrate topic! I took water to my LFS just to make sure my tests were accurate and they said my Nitrates were at 200. According to the above posts, this should not have killed Hermin, but will kill fish. I have my eye on 2 Dusky Jaws but was told I need to do a heavy duty water change, like 75% before I get them.

I did add a serpent star today! Anything octo like!!!!!:mrgreen:


Carol