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My octo isn't eating!

joshsaul

Cuttlefish
Registered
Joined
Nov 28, 2002
Messages
24
My octopus hasn't eaten for 4 days now. We have offered him live red crabs, live crayfish, ghost shrimp, frozen krill, and frozen clams.

He is much thinner than he was about a week ago. He is still out and moving around the tank during the day.

SG: 1.025

I just did a 20% water change and put in a new bag of carbon and a filter pad.

I'm not sure what else I should be doing.

Please advise.

Thanks,
Josh
 
I would have a good check at the water parameters and check in the tank for any uneaten food. maybe take a sample of water to a LFS for a testing session?

especially ammonia and nitrite

the water change was a good idea!

Is it a bimac? I sometimes forget who owns what on the forum :roll: :?

C
 
He is a vulgaris.

I have checked the water for ammonia, nitrate, nitrite. There was a tiny bit of nitrite probably from a crayfish that he didn't eat, so I did another 25% water change.

He looks like he is near death at the moment.
 
Very sorry to hear this Joshsaul... :frown: ...longshots here, I'm not an expert, but I'll try what I can. More information is always helpful, and forgive me if you've mentioned this elsewhere:

How long have you had him?
How big is the tank?
How big is he?
What was he usually fed before this happened?
Has any other aspect of his behavior changed? If so, what/how?
What other animals are in the tank now?
Has anything (new animal, new rocks/decorations, new equipment) been added to the tank recently?

I doubt I can even offer any useful suggestions based on most of these questions, except for the possibility that he's just reached senesence. But some of the experts here might be able to use extra info like this.

The PolyFilter media from Poly-Bio Marine is a good "emergency" material, I'm working on writing something up about these. Dropping one of these directly into the tank will suck up many bad things...perhaps you can find some at your LFS? Not at all sure that'd help him, but...

Good luck...hope he comes out okay but this doesn't sound good... :frown:

rusty
 
Colin said:
Is it a bimac? I sometimes forget who owns what on the forum :roll: :?

I realize I've been saying this for a long time, but the OCTO (Octopus and Ceph Tank Owners) Database will be launched on TONMO.com in the relatively near future. There were a few kinks to work out, but I believe we're just a couple of weeks away from the solution going live. This database will also allow users to provide information on octopuses that died.

Best of luck to yours, Joshsaul.
 
That wasnt a dig at you BTW tony!!! :oops: hehe i just forget sometimes :smile:

good points Rusty!

Any update Josh?
 
Unfortunately he died. He had a good life, eating crabs, tormenting crayfish, stalking shrimp, and interacting with our cats. Just last week he grabbed onto my finger for the first time.

He was a good pet and we will be getting another one soon.
:cry:
 
Hello Josh,

Sorry to hear about your loss - but you know he had a good life.
I'm glad you'll get another octopus.

One thing I'm curious about - how did he interact with cats?

Nancy
 
Well, we used to have a cat perch about a foot away from the tank. They used to jump up on top of it to sit, and he became absolutely terrified of them. Everytime he would see them moving he would turn completely black and start to move towards his cave.

We eventually moved the perch to the other side of the room and he became a lot more social. He was out all the time and didn't seem to be bothered when the cats walked around the tank. Sometimes they would jump up and try to grab a crayfish or crab at the bottom of the tank and he didn't seem to mind at all.

I think the fast movement of the jump up to the top of the perch made him think they were coming after him. After we moved it he was fine though.
 

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