Heinrich - A. aculeatus

[iAlex]

I've had mine for a few months and he's pretty cool, you should set up a small species-tank for him.

 

[reverhart]

CRAP!!!!

Well found Heini curled up in the tank looking dead, fished him out but he was alive, but barely-- put him back in overnight, and he still looks dead, but his eyes are open, and barely breathing

Everything was going great, he didn't show any signs of issues, of egg laying behavior

Sunday I bought (3) fish from a lfs--that I've never gotten fish from before--brand new place
--put them in the tank sunday night-- but I had to travel for work monday morning-- on my way out the door I was looking in the tank before the lights were on, and the bluw tang looked to have ich-- so I couldnt' do anything about it until I got home last night (tuesday)
when I got home I found the octopus basically dead--wife says she fed the fish, and saw Heini out and about during the day monday, but not tuesday

I just sent an e-mail to the fish store, and asked if they treat thier fish for ich, they said yes its reef safe, and we keep it in all the water

Well I think I posioned the octo with copper-- during acclimation I dumped a huge bag of water in the tank when I ripped the bag

Now I'm wondering did I poison a 240 gallon tank full of rock with copper--for ever for keeping octopus!!

DAMN!!!

 

[reverhart]

Well just got another note from the LFS--they use ruby reef med --it doesn't have copper-- so that probably isn't the culprit

guess it was just his time--but I expected him to act wierd before he died-- like not eating or not coming out during the day-- 31 days

 

[DWhatley]

You should have seen a decline for atleast several days. We have had one other incident of an octo dying right after eating fish. Your LFS may not treat the fish with copper but the importer/wholesaler might so the water may not have been compromised but there is a very high chance that the fish themselves were the culprit. It is almost impossible to get live fish that are safe to feed unless you catch them yourself or buy bait fish. Frozen human safe (ie seafood counter is probably OK (most of us feed frozen shrimp that are like treated with sulphides) but they don't need fish as part of their diet. For live foods crabs are your best inland alternate but crayfish(crawfish) can be fed for a treat and we will freeze the tails to give an alternate menu item (freezing uncooked whole is not recommended). When we find live blue crabs at the asian market we pick through the live animals and collect the loose claws and will freeze them as well.

 

[reverhart]

Its strange, the octopus showed no signs of getting old, no change in behavior, etc, he was flying around the tank during the day as usual, then just dropped dead

He never ate any fish in the tank, only dined on shrimp and crabs (always live)

The fish I added were tank mates

 

[ieatfalalfel]

I had this happen to my first octopus. And unfortunatley yesterday my octopus dropped and sat on the bottom for two hours allowing herself to be scavanged, but i guarded her with my hands for three hours or so and shes recovering. although only three of her tentacles still work. it is quite sad. And both mine were/ are of the abdopus complex.

 

[DWhatley]

I have found that at breeder net (or any contain you can scavenge in a pinch) stuck to the wall with a mag float works very well when trying to keep a weak animal away from the clean up crew.