Hey everyone

mtlarsen

O. vulgaris
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Jul 29, 2009
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92
My name is Matt. I'm new to caring for Octopuses. I'm currently setting up a tank for a Octopus bimaculoides. I'm having a rough time trying to find an Octopus bimaculoides. I have a 90 gallon predrilled tank. I have a refugium filtration system rated for a 175 gallon aquarium. My protein skimmed is for a 220 gallon aquarium. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
 
:welcome: to TONMO

unfortunately we are not aware of any place that is selling Bimacs. The few people that have them on here have caught them themselves on the California coast.


where are you located?
 
I live in Indiana. I could fly out there, but I think i'm going to start the hobby with a briareus. Any suggestions or info is appreciated. I have read Cephalopods by Nancy and Colin a few times, but outside of that book and TONMO forums i'm new to octopuses.
 
Review our articles (from the home page) for additional general reading but to get a good view of keeping brieareus, look at the top of the Journals and photos forum for the "List of our Octopuses" threads. The lists show the species and from 2008 through our current year have links to the individual journals. Two of the longer ones will be the ones for Kalypso (2008 Animal Mother) and Leggs (2009 CaptFish) as they were both obtained as very, very small animals and I will also throw in a reference to Kooah (2010 dwhatley) just because I am currently trying to raise two of her hatchlings.
 
Thank you to everyone for the warm welcome! I really enjoy this forum. I am extremely excited to start my journey with cephalopods. I will begin with an Octopus briareus. I am going to wait and get the right specimen though. I would be heartbroken if I received a specimen that is already entering it's senescent period. I plan on keeping a detailed forum once I receive my octopus briareus. My plan is to post a day by day "life journal" I am new to the hobby so I don't know how much anyone will benifit from my posts, but I will post them anyway.
 
90 Gallon Octopus briareus future home

Here is a pic of my 90 gallon Octopus aquarium minus an Octopus :smile: Please give me feedback on the rock formation and if it will be a suitable lair or den. Also I checked the oxygen level and it was 7.2 ppm. The temperature of my tank is 78 degrees. The salinity is at 1.024. Is that a sufficient level of oxygenation? I don't want to add an aerator. I overspeced the filtration and skimmer to avoid aeration.
 

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More Pictures

Here is a picture of the filteration and the hood. Sorry if my pictures are bad I took them with a Droid X.
 

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Two questions. Can you lower the water level in the main tank? Sometimes this is not viable but it helps to have about 2" of air space at the top to help with escape issues. Along the same line, do you have a way to secure the top? Some people use heavy weights, some use industrial velcro (a pain IMO) and other use locks (my preference). Weights have been both successful and unsuccessful depending on the octo and where they are placed but the air space (in addition to one of the other suggestions) seems to help the most (especially in combination with slight overlap around the edges.

It is unlikely a briareus will use the piping. I have seen the hatchlings squeeze into small crevices but not the larger animals (the one you get will likely have a mantle size about the size of a lemon) so the LR is likely to be the primary denning area and the piping ignored. In my own tanks I have about twice what you provide so that there is denning area the full length of the aquarium. Whether or not this is necessary or even desireable is unknown, however, the additional filtration cannot be argued. I would NOT rearrange what you have as it look just right for denning but I would add an additional configuration where you have decorations and perhaps put the decorations closer to the front. A male may enjoy the sand area as SueNami tended to come to the front at times (but several would move the sand OUT of their dens).
 
Thank you once again for the advice. I will not be able to lower the water level. The hood is secured to the point that you cannot fit a dime thru any opening. I secured the lid by drilling holes around he edges and in the middle support and putting plastic bolts and I used nuts to secure the lid shut. You can see them in the photo but they are a bit hard to see. As for the live rock suggestion I completly agree. I found a great source near my home. They have a wonderful selection.
 
Sounds like you have the top well in hand but with the water level you will need to be especially careful during feeding and cleaning with the large and medium sized animals.

Have you added any kind of clean up crew? One of my favorite are a pair of red (well, actually orange) brittles that we have in the two larger tanks. They have a bit of personality (more than most other brittles anyway) and are esthetically nice as well. Kara or Lynn usually have them if you don't find them locally. I also like the thorny stars. They are good meat eaters and active during the day and can be in very bright orange (but some are not as brightly colored). Both seem to do very well with all the octos I have kept and add interest as well as utility. Snails and/or hermits are a good idea and something to work on the algae on the rocks (mithrax, hermits, pencil urchins) should also be part of your troup.
 
I didn't know I could keep brittle starfish with an Octopus. I have about 10 small hermit crabs, but that is it at the moment. I also have a green chromis in the tank. Are mithrax the same as emerald crabs? I will definitely get a brittle and pencil urchins. Do they simply subsist on the brine shrimp that I am feeding the chromis? I'm still reading the journals that you suggested and learning more by the day.
 
Yes, mithrax are emeralds (and are called by a few other names as the mithrax group come in several colors, including a nice red) and may or may not become dinner (as with ANY crab in the tank) and may need replacing from time to time.

Brittles and serpents are great but I am particularly fond of the orange/red ones. The brittles will live off most anything meaty and dead in the tank. Avoid the green brittle/serpents. The problem with the greens is once they reach a certain size, they will also consume not yet dead or anything slow and develop tricks for catching sleeping animals. We have never had a report that they can hurt an octopus but I don't know of anyone who has risked it. Mr. Green Jeans lives with my mantis now that he has become aggressive (after many years) and his occassional tip amputations suggest he would try to take the mantis if given the opporunity.

You will have fun removing the chromis. Brine is really not a good food for anything. New hatch provides an egg sack that has some nutrition (the egg sack, not the animal and about the only thing we can feed to dwarf seahorses) but after about 12 hours they are a null food and not worth feeding. Giving your chromis a high quality marine flake would be better.
 

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