Octopus Food

[Omega]

blue rings are allowed to be imported because there are little to no federal regulation of aquatic species. you will notice many websites that are based out of Indonesia dont even warn that blue rings are in fact deadly. There is no antivenom anywhere however. Blue rings carry two toxins, the tetrodotoxin(found in a few other aquatics, including a puffer fish which is a delicacy served in japan as one wrong cut by a chef will kill you) is the main threat and is produced by bacteria in their saliva. The tetrodotoxin(a nuerotoxin) interferes with the nerves, basically rendering your vascular system paralyzed because the organs no longer get the commands to function[this is due to ion channels shutting down, your cells no longer can pump sodium and potassium into the cell which causes a failure of your nervous system to fire action potentials which are the source of signals in the nervous system]. the only treatment is artificial respiration that must be initiated within minutes of the bite, some bites if brief you might survive. most of the time toxin has gotten into you, there is simply no treatment and death is inevitable.

we actually just studied the effects of tetrodotoxin in my anatomy class this week

..this will probably get the thread moved..but it seems a necessary comment all the same.

[User Name]

Hes in AA county (we are neighbours) The store we went to is house of tropicals.

[Ryan Smith]

yeah... Well thanks for all of them help. Is owning octopi a fairly new thing? how is it no one knows much about them? you would figure a pet store would know a lot... but this is generally not the case.

[davelin315]

Hmmm... that's a bit far for me, have you checked out CMAS for reputable stores? I don't know too much about them, but there are some reviews on WAMAS. The only thing I do know about them is that one of our local members with a greenhouse supplies them with some corals.

As far as not knowing that much, I think it's because people kept them a lot before, but knew relatively little about them. Nowadays, people are more conscientious, well some are, and try to learn more about them, hence boards like this being successful places to go for information.

[DWhatley]

Ryan,

I wish it was as easy as saying I want to buy THIS kind of octopus let alone specify a sex. If your LFS has them in stock from time to time AND you can identify the octo species yourself AND you are willing to wait for what you want (which could take a year) then it might be a viable thought. some members have been able to get clear photos of octos in their LFS and post them for ID but in general, an identifying photo is hard to get. Tom's briareus are almost always briareus but he cannot sex them (unless one lays eggs while in his holding tank). Ken's mercatoris are usually mercs and he will occassionaly take a briareus to sell but forget asking for a specific sex. DanTheMarineMan (TONMO) knows his mercs but I have never seen him sex them or mention collecting other species. Once you leave the collector group and expand to the pet stores or on-line the species knowledge disappears altogether. Most octo purchases are pretty much a pig-in-a-poke and you go from there.

Successful saltwater aquariums are are relatively new thing and commercial salt has not been around for all that long (I think Instant Ocean is just over 50 years old). When Neal and I first tried a saltwater aquarium, the methods of seasoning a tank were about as opposite as you can get to todays LR cycles (we killed everything with bleach and then dechlorinated it for a month or more). There was no possible way to keep coral in that environment and anyone trying to keep seahorses would lose them in less than a week (in our case 24 hours on two different trys in two different fresh starts on the tank).

Octopus keeping is one of the newer animals to start achieving aquarium success but we still don't have successful tank breeding (there was one group that tried to breed bimacs but financially failed several years back called OctoPets). It has not been widely known for very long that their natural life spans were so short and you can still find posts in old aquarium threads that insist they will only live up to a year in captivity but would live for many years in the wild. There is a marvelous free online book that I just finished written in 1875 by a pubic aquarium curator and it is amazing how much was actually known at the time and how little of the knowledge has been in spread.

[Ryan Smith]

Hmmm well i read the thread about water damage and i tried to discuss it with my mom and she said "its not leaks im worried about, its the tank failing and all of the water pouring out." what are the chances of that...? The problem im having is that my mom says "i didnt say you could have one yet, but she wont discuss it with me. Yeah so shes going to let me get my hopes up for a month and then she could say no...

[Omega]

if you have the fish tank on a stand capable of holding its weight its not going to "fall" without some help.

[Ryan Smith]

no, she thinks its going to fail under pressure or something... she thinks its just going to explode or something?

[DWhatley]

hummm, having raised a couple of boys, is her concern more that it will explode because of the activity of a certain son (who admits to having hit one with a baseball bat sometime in his life)?. There is a solution for that but it cost quite a bit more money (consider a used tank). Acrylic tanks are pretty much industructable but they scratch very easily (inside scratches are the problem, not the outside ones). They have fewer seams and if the initial seam is good it is chemically bound and like not having a seam at all (proper seams are not a problem with commercial tanks but difficult for DIY - more of a if it does not leak in the beginning, it won't leak 20 years down the road - most of mine are acrylic)

[Ryan Smith]

Shes more concerned it will break on its own... and she has no clue i hit one with a bat before.

[Omega]

women, especially mothers, always know. they always know.

[Ryan Smith]

ehhhh, i dont think she knows? it was a good 6 yrs ago at a friends house. It was actualy kinda cool. My friend had a... 120 gal tank i believe. and all that was in it was a $.26 feeder goldfish his mom brought home from her wedding 14 yrs earlier. By then it was a foot an a half long and 14 yrs old.... pretty long for a goldfish right? but amyway we were messing around and i had a bat, and hit the glass tank pretty hard. Nothing happened.

[DWhatley]

women, especially mothers, always know. they always know.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) we don't know but we are quick to pick up hints along the way much of the time. It is more the nature of the beast we are aware of than any kind of precognitive powers that turns on alarms at the thought of 40 gallons of water lose in the house.

[Ryan Smith]

yeah, she figures worst case the house will explode. best case the tank explodes... a hundred thousand dollars of water damage and then our home owners insurance goes up ten fold.

[Omega]

between my three tanks i have somewhere near 130 gallons of salt water balaned on stands in my room with solid wood floors...clean up the drops fast. no big deal...watch your waterlines..if they magically lose several inches...find it and fix it. if you reaaaaally want to be safe there is a water level alarm online that costs a fortune

[Ryan Smith]

If you get a new tank you should be fine right?

[DWhatley]

We built our own house and I have tile floors, everywhere (almost and wish the bedroom was not carpet). Next house, I am having drains built in

[Ryan Smith]

wow lucky... being 15 i dont really have as much funding as i like but ill make do. Im worried im going to get addicted to octopi and when im older i wont be able to afford to keep them. Wait something thats been bothering me. Is the plural of octopus, octopuses or octopi? i was pretty sure it was octopi, but you ceph pros seem to call them octopuses. Even nancy and colins book has octopuses in it. Which is it?

[DWhatley]

There are three "correct" plurals: Octopuses, octopi and octopodes. You can expect that the topic has been discussed ... over and over ... and you can bet that Nancy and Collin used the preferred usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus - see Terminology

[Nancy]

You seem to have our book: (Cephalopods: Octopuses and Cuttlefishes for the Home Aqurium) - look on p. 12 in the section called "Octopuses, Octopi or Octopodes: Which is the Correct Plural?". This explains why "octopuses" is the correct plural.

Nancy