Tralfaz Eats

**lawfish** · Apr 11, '03, 7:33pm

Hey all:

The slowest :P of the fishsupply siblings is finally making some progress. he is now hunting frozen shrimp on a feeding stick. If I move it around he will come out and stalk it. Eventually, I let him catch it. It is interesting that he does not like to let go of the acrylic feeding stick. If I keep wiggling it he will try his hardest to pull it out of my hands even after he has the shrimp. (maybe he thinks that it is the shrimp struggling.

Anyway, I got some good pics of this psuedo-hunt. In the one you can see him grabbing the shrimp. Hopefully, he will "graduate" to catching live shrimp in the near future.

George

**lawfish** · Apr 11, '03, 7:37pm

Hey all:

Here is one of him trying to pull the ffeding stick away from me. The little guy has quite a grip. Oh, in the background of the one picture you can see Tralfaz's nemesis "snack" the shrimp.

George

**corw314** · Apr 11, '03, 8:51pm

Excellent Pictures!!!! Have you noticed much growth yet?

Carol

**lawfish** · Apr 12, '03, 11:48am

Hey Carol:

Actually, I have not noticed any real growth yet. :x Maybe because Tralfaz has not been eating as much as his brothers and sisters. (Hmmmm, does this make him the runt of the litter? :? ?)

**sideways** · Apr 12, '03, 5:24pm

I know Roxy is getting bigger, she can stretch her arms out 5 or 6 inches...they weren't that long when I got her. Maybe I should stop feeding her 10 lbs of food a day!

**corw314** · Apr 12, '03, 6:05pm

Sooo.... How often and how much do you feed?? I know Ink eats about every other day. I know he's really hungry when he's all over the tank, sifting sand, poking into everything. He comes right to the top when he see's the lids open. He eats maybe 5 thawed prawn from me and I think whatever he can grab from the Serpent Starfish. He also eats a good size, about 2" crab, including legs, and seems to like the male ones, cause of the large claw. Will have to try fresh scallop.

I am looking forward to the warmer weather cause I can start collecting locally!

Carol

**sideways** · Apr 12, '03, 11:33pm

I feed Roxy every day. Usually one of something large(1.5"-2" crab, mussel, etc) or 2 of something small(crabs, hermits). Sometimes I think its a lot but if you think about it, theres not a lot of meat in a small crabs shell. She comes out hunting for food at least once a day.

**Nancy** · Apr 13, '03, 2:04pm

I think I'm feeding Ollie about the same amount as you're feeding Roxy. I give him one fiddler crab or medium to large snail, and a couple of slices of fresh scallop every day.

For his first month or so I kept shrimp in his tank so that he could free feed a bit too. He finally learned to catch them without difficulty and last week he ate 50 in two days! Now I'll use the shrimp for a special treat!

He's grown a lot and is having trouble fitting into a few of his favorite places comfortably.

Nancy

**corw314** · Apr 13, '03, 2:13pm

Now that I'm thinking about it, I have the shrimp from Tonmo in Ink's tank that are disapearing, and there were 10 small hermit crabs that are decreasing in numbers. Ink maybe eating everyday also. I know I physically feed every other day. Does it matter if they eat daily? I seem to remember it could decrease their lifespan?? Wonder if they eat daily in the wild???

Carol

**lawfish** · Apr 13, '03, 9:33pm

Hey all:

I've actually been feeding Tralfaz every other day. I also seem to remember that this will increase his lifespan. I also would like to see him perfect his hunting techniques. (Hunger is a great motivator) In fact, he just took 6 frozen krill from me and scarfed them down. :D

George

**EightLeggedFreak** · Apr 24, '04, 5:30pm

Hi there I was actually about to order a bimac from fishsupply and was wondering if the octo you recieved came to you ok? Also how long did it take for yours to start eating once you recieved it?

**Nancy** · Apr 24, '04, 9:14pm

You might not have noticed, but the last post in this thread was over a year ago. Tralfaz was one of the original bimac siblings. Like Ollie, Ink, and Roxy, Tralfaz lived out his full life and died a few months ago.

Many of us ordered from Fish Supply and had successful results. Another good place is Octopets. A lot of our current bimacs come from there.

Nancy

**EightLeggedFreak** · Apr 24, '04, 9:31pm

Hi there again, yes I did see that but it seemed like alot of the people that were conversing in this post got theirs from fishsupply. The reason why i asked is because fishsupply has decent size bimacs, and octopets are a total of 1 inch.

Well i also found out why copper was in my tank. The distilled water supply i was using had a copper pipe that is really old inside the machine. Kinda pissed about that one, but atleast i found the problem. :x