• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

Live rock or artificial coral?

As far as a home/den environment for an octopus goes, it really does not matter. The often den in manmade structures. However, you need to have a well cycled tank so your bacteria levels need to be well established. If you start with dead/artificial rock it will take much longer to have enough bacteria to handle the waste of an octopus. If you use only dead rock, it will take over a year of concentrated effort (adding waste producing organisms) to ready a tank for an octopus. Often aquarists will mix live and dead rock to boost the cycle time but an octo tank is NOT ready at the point the nitrites and ammonia first reach zero as there is only enough bacteria to handle the waste of a few small hardy fish (I don't recommend cycling with fish but they are all that the tank would support at this point). Probably the least expensive method is to find a local aquarist (through local clubs or on-line listings) that is selling an established system and including that rock in a new setup. You would still need to feed the tank to grow the bacteria.
 
Aquarists have tried many magic bullets to shorten the ammonia->nitrite->nitrate cycle but there are none that I know of that have a proven basis for continued life (ie there are several that will boost the positive bacteria immediately but it will not be sustained). Other than wallet damage, I have not read of any that do harm.
 
I've never tried using the natural sea water products but would suggest you look into some of the reef forums for experience from other users. I do know that the major public aquariums us RO/DI water and a salt mix (with the very few exceptions where they pipe in and filter their own ocean water).

The general comments on live sand tend toward the useless (again, more harm to the wallet than any harm to the tank but providing little, if any benefit). Here again researching comments on a reef forum AND noting the experience of the discussing reefer will be your better reference.

Only your top level of sand will provide a bacteria nurturing substrate as the primary bacteria that will convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate is arobic (oxygen loving). You also want other porous substrate (rocks or other porous structures) to grow this bacteria. Anything below the surface sand is anaerobic and can be dangerous to the animals if allowed to grow and then is disturbed. The anaerobic bacteria is an aid to reducing the nitrates (the final product of the nitrogen cycle) and you will see threads on deep sand beds (DSB) set up for this purpose. A DSB cannot be disturbed, however, without releasing potentially poisonous chemicals into the water and should not be placed in an octopus tank since the animal will, by its nature, disrupt the substrate (you can use them in undisturbed sumps but nitrate is normally controlled by water changes for an octopus environment since the octo is far more nitrate tolerant than corals). Here is a nice article that discusses how a tank matures and why simply adding bacteria all at once does not cycle a tank. This particular article is about freshwater aquariums but the cycle discussion applies to both environments. This article addresses the saltwater environment and talks about some of the differences between nature, saltwater aquariums and freshwater aquariums.

There are two well worn expressions use in saltwater circles, "New Tank Syndrome" and "Nothing good happens quickly with a saltwater aquarium". You can Google both to see the large number of hits on the thoughts.
 
Great info D, This item I have found is a big help and I have been using them for years. Octos have a lot of waist so having enough rock and bacteria is very important. MarinePure™ Biofilter Media Products
This ceramic block or spheres have much more surface then any rock you can buy. I use the 8x8x4 block in my sump and then the rock or artificial coral in the tank is just for show. The amount of surface on these is fantastic. If you look at Caspers system you will notice there is not much rock. If I was not using this media there is no way that would be enough rock.
I will admit I did use a product once to kick start a 90g for Tranny. It was called turbo start but it has to be very fresh and kept cold. I do not suggest using it and its much better to cycle a tank naturally. My system was very young when I got Tranny "Maybe 2 weeks" I test my water often and the Turbo start did what it said and I never had a jump in ammonia or nitrites. My nitrates where kept in check. Again I am not suggesting this. I am an experienced reef keeper with lots of systems and could have exchanged rock from another system if my numbers went up at all. Learning the basics about how waist cycles out of a system is something every octo keeper should know.
 

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