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My new strange bimac

abdopus147

Blue Ring
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Feb 26, 2012
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Well, after Hachi passed away I waited until my water parameters were perfect. Once it was back to normal I caught myself a small bimac. It didn't really hide or hunt for the first two weeks, I tried almost every dead food you could think of crab, shrimp, scallop and numerous fish, the only things I missed was lobster and crayfish! I finally got it to hand feed on live fish, shrimp, and crab. I was hoping this would be just a stage and it would soon become healthy and hunt on its own like Hachi. But it's been a couple months now and it seems my octopus can't hunt, it seems to move clumsy and uncoordinated, one leg getting in the way of the other, moving either over dramatically or under dramatically with its legs so its body twist or stretches. Also it curls the tips of its arm, curls not corkscrews, uncurling it whenever it feels like it. What could be wrong?
Thanks,
Cameron
 
I highly agree with 'octo' on the possibility of senescence. I trust what you said about your water parameters and feeding, so I don't think that high Nitrates would be the source of your problem. Videos and/or even pictures would help a lot. Does the octopus seem pale in color etc?
And IMO, be on the safe side when feeding a newly adopted octopus and NEVER think about putting dead food in the tank for octo consumption unless the invert is trained to accept dead food or other various circumstances. Since most of the (well actually almost all) octopi that are sold in the fish keeping market are wild caught, live food is the only logical option. It's dangerous to put food in the tank if it's not going to be eaten or else a bombshell of ammonia will kill your octopus.
 
abdopus,
When you say you caught a small bimac, how small is it? I don't disagree that the symptoms sound senescent but, we don't see that in the young ones. However, with some of the information Dr. Gillie has posted on Humboldt squid it is curious to wonder if food supplies are low or the water temperature is high and the animals in your tide pool area are aging faster. With the one journal we have with captive raised from egg, none of the hatchlings lived more than a year, many lived less where some of wild caught have survived close to 3 years if kept in cold tanks (feeding may also be impactive but in this case the thought is fewer feedings extends longevity). We also see a very wide range of sizes in adults in most species, even from the same clutch.
 

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