Mystery otcopus

Ark

Hatchling
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Jul 13, 2008
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4
Hi there I'm new to this and didn't even know people kept octopus as pets! I found that out when I went to boardroom aquatics where I live. So now I'm interested in owning one of these extremely amazing animals, I did my homework trying to decide what species is best for me to start with, I'm gonna try to avoid messing with small octopus because every animal I've owned I made it custom to breed, but I'm switching my field from lizards to cephalopods. So here is my call for help. At board room aquatics they just received 3 octopus today and never had them before, so there is no price tag. All they said was some guy brought them in and they're babys. I saw the container they were in and all I saw was 3 snail shells little bigger then a mystery snail shell and 1 little tentacle sticking out so i know these guys must be new-borns. I live in Fort Myers Florida so I did a quick search on what species I thought it was. The only thing that seemed close to this species is Octopus briareus or "Caribbean reef octopus" if they're really that species I hear they get from 40-60 cm and supposedly some have gotten to 100cm. If someone can answer this chatterbox id be happy thanks!

Ark
 
We need more information to identify, and pictures of course would be very helpful. If they are from Florida they could very well possibly be O. briareus. This is what a baby briareus looks like:

IMG_0257.jpg


Being so small, there's also a chance they are O. mercatoris which are dwarfs from the same area.
 
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:welcome: to TONMO. I agree that pics would help a lot... briareus also tend to look more blue-green a lot of the time than other species... there's a pic of a very greenish youngster floating around somewhere, but obviously from AM's post, that's not all the time...
 
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Thanks I'll make sure to try and get a pic but I'm almost sure that its a briareus, My friend said a few yrs ago him and his brothers were at a local beach and there was a pool of about 6 or 7 of these baby octopuses, and if 100% sure they are briareus I'll be working on breeding these guys, from what i read these are fully developed babys from the get-go correct? I wanna start with a 30 gallon tank would this be ok until I got a 90 gallon tank In possibly the next month or would that be too small if i wanted to attempt breeding in the future? Sorry if I'm asking too much, I checked the cheph care for breeding of briareus but didn't find anything
 
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Ark;121475 said:
Thanks I'll make sure to try and get a pic but I'm almost sure that its a briareus, My friend said a few yrs ago him and his brothers were at a local beach and there was a pool of about 6 or 7 of these baby octopuses, and if 100% sure they are briareus I'll be working on breeding these guys, from what i read these are fully developed babys from the get-go correct? I wanna start with a 30 gallon tank would this be ok until I got a 90 gallon tank In possibly the next month or would that be too small if i wanted to attempt breeding in the future? Sorry if I'm asking too much, I checked the cheph care for breeding of briareus but didn't find anything

a 30gal might be OK for a little while, but keep in mind that it's important to have a well-cycled (3 months) tank before introducing an octo, so if you don't get the 90gal for a month, an octo might outgrow the tank (and filtration) on the 30gal before the 90 is ready. I'm not clear on whether you mean to buy one or several; I suspect that in the 30 they'll be crowded enough that they'll fight, and of course they'll hit the filtration harder faster.

Any briareus keepers have input on this?

For breeding, although I'm fairly sure they're large-egged, they also seem to have very fragile babies; I can't think of anyone who has raised briareus from egg to adult successfully.
 
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I have a 75 gallon here i was gonna use as a community tank but ill just set that up instead, yeah i checked out setting up a tank so i might as well setup the 75 gallon, but i only have intentions of buy one for now lol, but ill try breeding one when its ready, going into the dark and giving it a shot is part of the fun and trial and error it was makes any breeder good.
 
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what species could i get that would live comfortable in a 75 gallon? i wanna try to avoid platonic species but i bred pygmy seahorses about 5 yrs ago would platonic babys live off new born brine shrimp if i went that route? correct me if im wrong but females die soon after laying eggs either way right? it'd seem worth a chance to try something new.
 
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For the most part briareus seem okay for a 75. Some grow larger than others, and mine never turns down food. I've spread out its feedings a little to try and slow down its growth.

No one on here has had any success raising planktonic octo babies, yet. Artemia would probably be too large.

Generally speaking, females tend to die around the time the eggs begin hatching. Some have had success keeping the mother octopus for a few weeks after the eggs hatch.
 
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