• 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.

NEED HELP ON OCTO TANK

ageezy;158575 said:
Thanks, how cold would I need it for a bimac

There is some debate about that, but the average monthly water temp in the wild ranges between 55 (Feb) and 70 (Aug) degrees (F). Based on that, a constant temp of about 62 or 63 would certainly be fine. Many people have kept bimacs at room temp (generally about 72 degrees), but I think they live "faster" (but probably happily) and die earlier at those warm temps. I keep mine at 56 degrees because I also keep strawberry anemones, which like cold water, and because I want to maximize their life span (I caught my current bimac almost a year ago, and it was fully grown then (hasn't grown noticeably)).

It might all be moot, since nobody knows of a place to buy a bimac, so if you can't catch one yourself, you generally can't get one. That may change some day, but that's the word here at Tonmo.
 
Joe, it is the crawling and swimming length that I find a problem with a 30" long tank, the briareus will swim and crawl (or dance on along the wall) actively at night. Even a smaller briareus will ultimately have an armspan in excess of 30". If the LR was placed in the center of the tank and the full wall space could be traversed, that might make up for the lack of an elongated wall.
 
Let's try another route I talk to my lfs and he said a supplier had some common octos comin in will they be dwarfs or briarus, I no u guys don't have crystal balls but just by the time of year would u be able to tell?
 
Caribbean octopuses tend to be available in the spring but part of that is the fishing season. There does seem to be a seasonality to hatching but octopuses can be born year round. If you can take some CLEAR pictures when they come (putting a ruler in the photo is also helpful) often we can tell (it also helps to know the body of water it inhabited).

One thing you can do at to try to help you determine between these two is to look at the arms. O. mercatoris arms will be about 1.5 times the mantle length, O.briareus will have arms that are at least 3 times the mantle length. There are other major differences but arm to mantle ratio is the easiest to determine in the LSF environment. If the mantle is more than 2" it will not be a merc.
 

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