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Complete newbie requesting help with first octopus setup!

Good afternoon America :smile:

I've been out, got an air pump, luftslange (don't know what it is in English, the thin tube that the air goes through) and an airstone, put it together and wedged the airstone under some rock, lots of bubbles coming from it and the fish seems much happier now. It was cheap equipment as you said.

That camouflage video I have seen in one of the documentaries I watched, the others I hadn't seen and there was some really amazing behaviour and footage. Is it known what species are on the two Jarvis Bay videos?

I forgot to buy dechlorinator but I assume I can just wash up with the water coming out of the RO unit. I have soft sponges that haven't been used so that's all good.

I have already spent many hours reading through the journals! I've still got plenty of them to read though, I mostly looked at the ones of the species I figured I am most likely to end up with. I've watched all the footage of Legs and Waldo already :smile: I can't remember which journal it was but it was a very sad story of an octopus that turned white shortly after the owner acquired it, the water and everything was ok but the octopus was dead the next morning anyway. It was very sad and I thought my goodness I hope that doesn't happen to me with my first octopus, I realised how attached I would become very quickly.

The saltwater guy at the shop is very good and friendly, he's also given me the number of a .. glassmester (someone who can cut glass to specification) that is not very expensive so I can get the pane replaced. I was embarrassed to learn he had seen my YouTube video (I posted it on Facebook) so now he knows I don't know what I'm doing lol.

For reference the documentaries I've watched over the last days are:

Discovery Channel - The Ultimate Guide: Octopus
National Geographic - Wild Search for the Giant Pacific Octopus
Octopus Volcano (this was my favourite, and it was so sad at the end I almost cried)
BBC - Special Agents (episode 3 of 6) - this is about many predator animals but there is a small section about octopuses towards the start
Your Instructional Tropical Aquarium Guide - this is budget-made Australian program about freshwater aquariums. It's very basic but I still learned some things, it is probably the perfect place for a complete beginner to start.

Hehe, it won't remove the ex, he lives with his ex-wife and children and we have been best friends for many years now since we broke up. However, although he denies any interest, he has been asking about the fish and spent a lot of time helping out, it would not surprise me if he ended up with a small freshwater aquarium in 2 or 3 months :smile: (I am going to laugh a lot) He doesn't have the free time and disposable cash that I have (although I'm really broke at the moment that is fortunately quite unusual) so I don't think he could commit to a saltwater setup. He also doesn't have the luxury of being able to make a mess all over his house, since I live alone and he has 3 other people with him.

I wanted to just tell you a little bit about my experience with the shopkeepers on Wednesday in the Oslo aquarium. The octopus expert wasn't there which was very unfortunate, and the two people who were there got me quite irritated. The boss tried to convince me to get a blue ring octopus, I told him I didn't want one because of the danger; he went on to tell me how docile they are and that he had only ever heard of one case of a blue ring-related death. I told him I didn't care how docile he thought they were, I flat out didn't want one and that was the end of it. I asked him what else he imported and he said he got a lot of Mimic octopuses. I told him I didn't want one of those either having read around online that they are or may be endangered, dangerous and are not well understood. We have a thing in Europe called CITES - I'm not sure if you also use it over the pond but it is a list of endangered species that cannot be legally traded here. I checked it the other day and there are no octopuses listed as far as I could see; the guy asked me if mimic octopuses were on the CITES list and I said no, and he replied that if they weren't on the list he didn't care. So I left with a pretty bad impression of him. I am going to post on the three Norwegian aqua forums I found (one is saltwater specialist, the other two have saltwater sub-forums) and ask if anyone knows where to get an octopus.
 
Ok... now I don't know what to do. I tested the ammonia in the fish bucket and it was 1.5mg/l. I changed 2/3rds of the water with saltwater I made yesterday, 1.028 salinity, 8.3 pH, and tested again, now the ammonia is 3.0mg/l :frown: What did I do wrong?
 
Hmmm, that is strange. Test your freshwater. there maybe ammonia in it for some reason.

I saw in you video, most excellent by the way, that you have some filter socks and Carbon. put the carbon in the sock, rinse it, and let it hang in the 5 gallon buckets it will aid in the filtration and help with the ammonia.
 
Alright - give me a minute, Im a bit stressed because being new I have no idea how long a fish will actually survive at tha level. I just tested the saltwater and it was also 1.5mg/l - freshly made yesterday afternoon. I checked the salt ingredients and it doesn't mention ammonia. testing the freshwater now.
 
Ok the ammonia level in the RO water is zero, or very close to zero (I'm having more trouble reading the colour charts than I expected). Awaiting your instructions...
 
Ok, I've rinsed the sock (lots of white stringy gunk on the inside), and the carbon, put it in the sock and hung the sock on the bucket. I don't know how much carbon you need but the sock can't be more than 2-3% full, there were only a couple of handfulls left, so I just put it all in. The sock is more or less floating just beneath the surface (I'm just writing all this in case there is a problem).

The airstone seemed to stop producing bubbles, I took it out and put it in the water again and now it's working again...

How long should I wait before I test for ammonia again?
 
The level of ammonia in the LR and crabs bucket is zero (or nominally zero). I replaced almost all the saltwater in that yesterday with the first of two batches I made yesterday; the 2nd batch went into the fish bucket today. I thought I prepared both buckets of saltwater in exactly the same way so I'm not sure what has happened there. But at least, it's good to know I at least made the first one correctly :P
 

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