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Delima? advice appreciated

Will

Cuttlefish
Registered
Joined
Mar 7, 2010
Messages
26
Ok so here it goes,


I visited my LFS again today, and the little mercratoris that they have is
still there after four weeks. I was speaking to the guy there and he told
me that they have it eating frozen krill, and it comes out at closing (8pm)
to accept its food. Right now they have it in a tiny hamster ball in their
coral display tank. I have spoken to the gentlemen and he stated that he
would sell it to me for 15 dollars (a steal i think) I know that my tank is very young, and
that normally i would consider putting a octo in a young tank very
irresponsible. However, I have had no noticeable cycle and my nitrates have
been consistently low (less then 10) four about a week now. All of the rock and the majority of the sand was from a previously existing tank. Tonight i put a couple pieces of food in the tank and will let it decompose (i have a clean up crew that will eat some of it) and see what affect it has on my
water quality. If there is not noticeable spike, do you think it would be ok to pick up the octo this weekend?

Its mantle is about the size of a marble so i doubt it could add that much bio-load to my system (although i know they are messy).

Should I do it or not?
 
Will I voted yes because it will do better with you than at the LFS but I did want to ask the size of your tank. Mercs don't need anything more than a 15-20 with good water change practice. You are sure this is a merc, right? Slightly buldging eyes, no more than 2:1 mantle to arm ratio, quickly tapering arms.
 
Is a 26 gallon tank with a 4/5 of the way full 20 gal on sump. I examined it (next to a pic of a merc on my iphone) and it did look like the mercs i have seen, especially with the reddish coloration. and yes i did see the 2:1 ratio. Im going to get my glass top cut tomorrow to be ready in case i decided to take him in.
 
While you are getting your glass cut, you might also look for a cluster of barnacles to wedge about midway up the water column. I have found (albeit I have had only 3 females and 2 were related) that the females readily take them as a den even if they are conveniently exposed for human viewing. My males have visited them but seem to change dens every couple of weeks.
 
got the glass cut, but the guy at the store called me to tell me that the octo just sold (for good or bad i suppose). Now i dont have to worry about my system not being quite ready. I told him to order me two if he can and he said he would have them in about 2-3 weeks, which should be long enough for me to stabilize my system.
 
Hopefully, we will see the keeper on TONMO shortly :biggrin2:

I recommend keeping pairs (pairs of males if you have a choice and don't care about raising young - but it would be rare to have the choice) as they seem to be more active than when kept individually.
 

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