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Feeding

gordon

Pygmy Octopus
Registered
Joined
Sep 16, 2012
Messages
7
I know I've seen lots of articles on here about proper care and types of food. But I've searched for an hour or two and not finding what I'm looking for.

I'm trying to find feeding guides and recommended diets. Ideally I'd like to use food I can culture.

I read a post that said amphipods could potentially work to replace mysid shrimp. Is this a known to work strategy?

Are mollies grown in saltwater an acceptable food?

Any tips appreciated
 
The only food that we have found to be readily available and consistently successful for new hatchlings has been live mysid shrimp. Several people have attempted to raise the shrimp but none have been successful in rearing enough to feed hatchlings.

New hatch brine has been tried over and over (gut loaded and not) with zero success. The cuttles will often eat the brine but there is not enough nutrition to sustain them and they die.

I don't recall anyone trying new hatch fish but they are unlikely to have the proper fat balance (especially freshwater animals, regardless of acclimation) to be used as a regular diet. Freshwater ghost shrimp seem to be the exception for older animals (ie not hatchlings) and octopuses have been reported to have been raised on crawfish (not journaled on TONMO).

Crab zoa (new hatched crabs) are thought to be a major key to growing small egg pelagic octopuses to settlement and might also be acceptable but sourcing a supply is close to impossible.
 
The only food that we have found to be readily available and consistently successful for new hatchlings has been live mysid shrimp. Several people have attempted to raise the shrimp but none have been successful in rearing enough to feed hatchlings.

New hatch brine has been tried over and over (gut loaded and not) with zero success. The cuttles will often eat the brine but there is not enough nutrition to sustain them and they die.

I don't recall anyone trying new hatch fish but they are unlikely to have the proper fat balance (especially freshwater animals, regardless of acclimation) to be used as a regular diet. Freshwater ghost shrimp seem to be the exception for older animals (ie not hatchlings) and octopuses have been reported to have been raised on crawfish (not journaled on TONMO).

Crab zoa (new hatched crabs) are thought to be a major key to growing small egg pelagic octopuses to settlement and might also be acceptable but sourcing a supply is close to impossible.


Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I didn't think a mysid culture would work out well. I saw a comment that you used opae ula red shrimp at one point but weren't able to get them to reproduce. Would they have been a suitable substitute for the mysid if they had?
 
It has been awhile since I tried this but I am sure that the Hawaiian red opae shrimp were my second sized animal (using the mysid first). I had been trying to raise them in quantity to use as octo hatchling food but never had many to reproduce. They may be available again now but they are still too big for first cuttlefish food.
 

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