College kid setting up his first octopus tank!!!

wlyon

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I'm a Grad Student at the University of Central Arkansas, getting my masters in both special education and marketing. I work part time at a local pet store which has a small saltwater section that I'm in charge of. I have a five gallon reef with sump and refugium, and a hundred gallon fowlr system with a 20g refugium for my seahorses and 30g sump. This system is currently under construction as I am plumbing in a tank to house a dwarf octopus. Which I have never kept before.

I have a 60g marineland cube tank that is now plumbed through the wall running on a hang on back filter for now while it cycles before I plumb it in to my existing system.
 
:welcome: to TONMO

sounds like fun. let us know if you have any questions.

I have one...with all those tanks and capacity why a dwarf? That 60g would make a nice home for an Aculeatus, Hummelincki or Bimac(requires a chiller). these are slightly larger and much more interactive octopuses. Also most dwarfs are nocturnal, so they are not often seen.
 
I figure a dwarf will be a good starter octopus for a beginner

CaptFish;182942 said:
requires a chiller

I don't have a chiller at the moment, and I'm a poor college kid : (


CaptFish;182942 said:
much more interactive octopuses.

This is the only downfall to getting a dwarf in my opinion


CaptFish;182942 said:
Also most dwarfs are nocturnal, so they are not often seen.

I'm a college kid haha, it's 2 in the morning and I still have two more chapters to review before my test tomorrow, so that's a bonus : )


Just out of curiosity whats the "smallest" tank size you guys would recommend keeping a dwarf octopus in?
 
29 gallon, fittted with only red lighting, I like LED, a protein skimmer, and filter. IMO is the best/smallest dwarf setup.

I don't have a chiller at the moment, and I'm a poor college kid : (
Only the bimac requires a chiller, the other two are from warm water 78*.
 
I would not downsize. We never know what we are getting and the 60 will accomodate most that show up. Keep in mind that these animals only live about a year and you will not be getting a hatchling. I emphasize this because you will likely be cycling the tank for longer than you will have your first animal. I always advise keeping this in mind and building a tank to accomodate a variety. A(an octo tank will also do well for cuttlefish should they be of interest during one of your "cycles" :wink:
 
CaptFish;182954 said:
29 gallon, fittted with only red lighting, I like LED, a protein skimmer, and filter. IMO is the best/smallest dwarf setup.


Only the bimac requires a chiller, the other two are from warm water 78*.

Good to know on the chiller, and where is the best place to get red led lights for an octopus tank?

and DWhatley, I'm not planning on downsizing I was just curious. My 60g cube tank is probably my favorite tank design I've seen : ) and Lucky for me I do the fish ordered for my store so I've been talking with the suppliers for about a month now on which octopus to get, and have a pretty good selection for when my tank is done.
 
The 60 cubes seem to be a real favorite with a lot of aquarists and I have oggled them but not set one up.

You have a number of choices for red light but makeing them esthetic is a challenge. Oddly there is a screw-in (incandescent base) fluorescent that you can find a Home Depot and I think I saw them at Wal-Mart as well. I have one that is mounted in an ugly shop light (silver cone) that I use on one tank. LED's come in a variety of set ups and prices. Some are all red (often with white LEDs and a red cover), some are color switchable. The color switchable are nice but finding one that will keep the setting after a power outage is advised but not required. I have also used high temp velum inside a covered light and others have used it directly on the tank. One other method is to heavily paint a cover for a light. I have a tank that needed special considerations and use an outdoor light fixture. I have two covers for is and one is spray painted red.
 
If you want to get fancy and DIY, rapidled.com sells red LEDs and most of the things you would need to rig up your own LED lighting system.
 
Thanks for all the help, I'm planning on having a canopy on this tank custom built by a friend of mine from our reef club, so most of these options will be possible.
 


This is the design of my system before I started building it, but I didn't change to much. The Octopus tank will be plumbed through the wall into this system. So I will have two return pumps in the left side of the sump.
 

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From time to time I get a big gulping sound from the drain, so I threw it down into the sump to quiet it down. For the most part the refugium is there to house my seahorses more than to aid in water quality of my big tank.
 
DWhatley;183363 said:
I am curious about why you chose to run the refugium back into the sump rather than into the display.

Question on refugiums, I was always told you should keep a low flow rate in your fuge. However, recently I've seen more and more people putting more/bigger powerheads or more return flow in their fuge. My fuge is a 20g Marineland Halfmoon tank. I have about 200gph in overturn and no power heads. So my question is am I doing this wrong?

Fuge Specs:
50 lbs fine sand
20 lbs live rock
2x 9watt 65k power compact lights
lots of different/pretty macroalgea
3x peppermint shrimp
2x sand sifting seastars
lots of nassarius snails
4x hippocampus seahorses
bangaii cardinal
green mandarin
red feather sealilly

pic before I started stocking
 

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First, I think you need to define refugium (if you can :biggrin2:). My own definition would be a macro algae and or deep sand bed that acts as additional biological filtration and receives all its food from the main tank. Refugiums of this style, particulary with deep sand beds, usually have low flow rates to accomplish the the cleaning task (particularly for the nitrate removal). Return is typically back to the main display particularly to provide small crustations ("pods") that typically grow there (or are encouraged) to keep a continuous supply of live food and additonal clean-up to the main tank. This type of set up seems to best work with the fuge above the primary tank with a cascading overflow that also adds aeration.

IMO, using a connected tank with seahorses, or any other fish/animal that is fed separtately, would be a connected display and not fall into that category. As far a flow rate for your set up, you need to move enough water to clean-up and aerate for the seahorses and not concentrate on nitrate removal since you are adding, not reducing waste.
 

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