Hi folks, I've been monitoring this kinda loosely. As Webmaster of this site it's sometimes helpful that I actually have zero ceph-keeping experience, because I can be somewhat objective. For the 6 1/2 years that I've run this site I've relied on our resident experts to provide guidance and educate the masses on what it takes to keep a ceph... I am among the masses and I can say that I've learned quite a bit just by "listening" to what people have contributed on these forums and from the articles we have under Ceph Care.
While many community members have come and gone, there is a strong core here from all points of the world, with extensive ceph-keeping experience. From that community of experts, several common themes have prevailed. Those themes have pretty much become TONMO.com guidelines on keeping cephs. One such guideline is that a ceph really shouldn't be kept in anything less than a 55-gallon tank. And it is commonly accepted and understood that a captive bimac won't live for much more than 1 year, if things go well.
I cannot understand how it could benefit an octopus to have a smaller tank than a larger one. Their natural habitat has no boundries, so I'm unclear how restriction can be a good thing. I can only imagine advocating for as large a tank as humanly possible, but with a minimum of 55 gallons, again, purely based on what I've learned from countless folks on these forums. Can an octopus "fit" into a smaller tank? Yes, but the conventional wisdom is that it's restrictive, and therefore TONMO.com simply does not condone anything less than 55 gallons.
There are two big problems with this thread and as such I'm locking it... those problems include:
1) unsupported advocacy for ceph keeping guidelines which are outside the boundries of what TONMO.com condones
2) While I strongly believe everyone here started with the best of intentions, this thread is beginning to lose (or has lost) its civility.
Alexfevery, if you have any solid, verifiable references or proof you'd like to cite here, please PM it to me or email me at
[email protected] and I'll post it to the end of this thread, and perhaps we can ultimately start a new one if compelling information emerges on this. I appreciate you sharing your input and experiences here, but I do feel a responsibility to ensure that years of study and shared experiences do not get compromised by one person with somewhat radically different ideas on responsible ceph-keeping. That's not meant as a knock, it's just an observation that your approach is quite different than what TONMO.com has been advocating.
I'll suggest that anyone reading this thread looking for guidelines for ceph-keeping should visit our Articles on Ceph Care (see top navigation), and take anything stated here with a huge grain of sea-salt.
I am not against broadening our thinking or infusing new learning into our conventional wisdom. Very much the opposite. However, when a new idea tests the limits of what TONMO.com has established as being humane, I believe it will take a lot of convincing and evidence to shift the mindset.
Personally, even if it is to be verified that this bimac was kept for 3 1/2 years in a small tank, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be advocated anyway. What is suggested here is quite unnatural, as the natural habitat for an octopus has no boundries. I can't imagine coming to a conclusion that 55 gallons is too large for a minimum.
I have rated this thread with one star. Note that although this thread is locked, you can still rate it.
Any thoughts or input, please PM me, thanks!