New Octopus owner! :)

So I'll just get the tank all set up while I am on the octopus hunt again. :frown: I was looking forward to having him, too. If anyone has any ideas on where to get one...\


the measurement was from arm tip to top of the body.
 
At 1 foot long, it was likely an O. briareus (assuming a Caribbean animal) and WAY too large (think about it, at 12" it was 2 feet arm tip to arm tip, already longer than your tank and would grow twice that size). A thirty gallon tank is really only large enough for O. mercatoris (or another dwarf species but we don't see many others). There is one other local to the Caribbean (usually from Haiti) that is sometimes small enough to do well in a 30 but the size of O. hmmelincki varies greatly. This is a nice animal if you can locate one but it has not been seen on TONMO in about 2 years. I suspect we will see some of the absent species in the next year or two if the current trend of squid population return (likely the absences of an el nino) continues but I am just speculating.

It would be best to cycle your tank and build up bacteria while you are looking. We heavily recommend a minimum of 3 months cycle with contining bioload additions. You can add serpent stars, urchins, hemits and crabs and overfeed the tank to establish an environment that will better accomodate the bioload of an octopus (much more intense than fish - consider the needs of a fish that size and then double it).

From one of your questions on another thread, you should probably spend some time in the journals but I will mention a few facts you need to know while you plan your next attack. Octopuses that we keep in home aquariums only live about a year (some 18 months but keep in mind they are wild caught and will be several months old at best when they arrive). At the end of their lifecycle the female will lay eggs (fertile or not). She will usually live long enough to tend the eggs and then die shortly after the eggs hatch (or would have hatched had they been fertile in the case of one that never mated). The males will die at about the same age (IME the males a couple of months longer). Once a female lays eggs, she usually stops eating and will not come out of her brood den so there are advantage of getting a male as they are more active for more of their lives. When it is there time, they too stop eating and will either sleep most of the time and/or start wandering restlessly around the tank. When we see the lack of appetite and aimless wandering or odd behavior we call that senescence.

There are two classifications of hatchlings. One is born as a duplicate of the parent and will start living in the live rock within a week of hatching, going to the LR within a day but often out at night on the tank walls the first week. As a group, these benthic hatchlings are considered a large egg species. The second group that we refer to as small egg, hatches out with very short arms and few chromataphores (the color controls of the skin). They are barely recognizable as octopuses and live in the water column for roughly a month while they continue to evolve. Not really a metamorphisis, but more like a premature birth. It is possible to raise (though VERY difficult) a few of the large egg species but so far it is not viable for home aquarists (and VERY limited success with large flow through lab/public aquariums) to raise the pelagic small egg species.

Within TONMO, the highest success rate for raising tank born hatchlings has been with O. mercatoris (nocturnal, Caribbean dwarf) where 5 of roughly 100-150 hatchlings have survived (there has been limited success with inbreeding the survivors for an additional generation). The second most successful tank hatchlings have been O. bimaculoides, a Pacific, cold water species.

O. briareus is a large egged species so there is viability of raising hatchlings but success of raising them through a normal life span has only been journaled once and a mating of the two surviving did not produce young that survived more than a week.
 
The tank's been set up a while. I just never had anything in it but the damsels to make sure it was running well. Think it's been up about a year. But it probably was for the best!
I do know that they don't live long, and that they die shortly after laying eggs. I didn't know though, that some people actually try to breed octopi. I knew that it was very hard to hatch and care for hatchlings. I was just curious if her octopus had given her fertile eggs, cause I never heard of that.
When I said "get the tank all set up" I meant, make a proper lid for it. :smile: Right now it just has a regular saltwater tank hood that doesn't have the filter and heater holes covered yet. There are snails and crabs in it right now. I'll go out and get some more inverts to put in. If I get any urchins or starfish, how safe would they be to move into my wife's tank once I get an octopus? I might just buy a bigger aquarium. and set that up so I have a bigger one. I can always tell my wife she can use it as a quarantine tank for fish she gets for her tank!

I love all the information I am finding here, and how helpful you all are!
 
You can leave serpent stars and pencil urchins (other have also used pin cushion urchins but the general recommendation is not to include these because of the spines, likewise long spined and rock urchins should be avoided. Pencils are NOT reef safe) in a tank with an octopus. I keep both in mine (usually 1 serpent/brittle per 30 gallons but I will put two smaller ones in a 40). You can also leave snails and hermits. The snails and hermits may become octo food but IME octos will only eat these if other food is not available when they are hungry. The only octopus I have had that would clean a tank of snails and hermits was LittleBit (likely a small vulgaris).

There is a red brittle star that I particularly like to put in with octopuses. It has nice coloring but the odditiy is their seeming relationship with octopuses. When there is no octopus in residence, we rarely see them but they are very often visible when the tank has a primary occupant. Most serpents will learn feeding time and can be hand fed if that is something you would like to explore.

Female octopuses store the sperm after mating so they may have mated as much as 4 months prior to egg laying. If a keeper ends up with an older female, it will likely have mated, brood and hatch young. Raising the young, however, has limited success even with the large egg species. We only have a few attempts at actually breeding them journaled and all are second generation sibbling attempts. Have a look at our Raising Octopus from Eggs forum to read about some of the attempts.
 
It's good to know I could leave starfish and all that in with an octo.
That would be rather neat to hand feed a starfish. My kids would think it was cool too, but I have to keep the tank in a room they don't go in cause they are always running around. It'd scare the octo to death! Don't think they are quite able to sit still very long. my daughter could, but not my boys!

I'm not really interested in trying to breed octos. But I find learning about all aspects of them very fascinating. :smile:
 
LOL, most of us don't start out thinking about breeding octopuses but if you keep them for awhile, eventually you will get a sexually mature female and end up with hatchlings. I kind of jumped in early with my very first one.

There is a difference between what we normally designate as starfish, brittle stars and serpent stars. I have never hand fed the typical starfish but have hand fed many serpent stars and brittle stars. Our red brittles are all named Pesky (at one point they had individual numbers but now they are just called the Peskys). With an octo in the tank they are the most interactive. Our other serpents know supper time and come looking for food but are not as insistent as the red brittles.
 
It sounds like octos really are worth the time it takes to care for them. The rest of the family is reading about them and watching vidoes online of them, and the kids are totally fascinated by them. If my wife lets me I will always have an octopus. :smile:


My wife got some flak on one of her forums with people telling her we shouldn't get an octopus, and going as far as telling her to buy a dead one and put it on the floor so we can see it and then for her to lie and say she bought it for the tank.
 
Aw shucks well thats no good.
It's generally not a good idea to confer with fish-keepers on something entirely different from their field, we can all agree that octopi are quite different from fish. Also octopi are more hardy than what some would expect and the field of cephalopod keeping is relatively new. It's common for some to say octopus are very hard to keep and are very fragile (not to mention their short lifespans may have influenced some to believe this). Yet if you look at the list of octopuses of (2001, 2011, 2012 etc) countless of people have successfully kept an octopus (or two perhaps). Don't be discouraged, plus your kids are looking forward to it.


Btw, what is the site for the forum :wink:
 
Keeping any marine (or any non-domestic) animal has its moral considerations and many of them are valid. We have many member that do not keep octopuses for pets and some do not keep marine tanks. Our commonality is an interest cephalopods with a heavy bend toward conservation. If your wife's forum members have specific comments we can address, please collect them and we can either confirm or deny their validity. Most of the valid negatives would hold true for keeping any kind of marine environment and I have issues with people who think it is OK for them to keep a captive marine tank but not so for other people. I have to admit I deplore the one suggestion that you, and hopefully she, find absurd.
 
Her response to me was That was mean and she could NEVER do that to me and the kids.

And it was just more of the same. You don't want one because they don't live long. They'll die because they will ink in the tank if they get scared and you don't change it right away. Best way to keep them in the tank is not to have one at all. I know that most of what this person said was valid, but they didn't need to tell her not to get one, and then the comment that was made after that. She was told about this place on that forum.
It just made her more determined to help me with getting and caring for one. People who know my wife know you don't EVER tell her she can't or doesn't want to do something because she will want to do it even more.
The forum is www.aquariacentral.com The thread my wife started is here Looking into getting an octopus-how to keep it in the tank?
 
I know there are lots of commonly kept marine animals that starve to death slowly or are only able to eat one food and so they normally don't make it very long, like clams, and cleaner shrimp, and sea slugs, etc. My wife won't buy anything for her marine tank that's not captive bred.

I know not all octopus hide all the time. Seen videos of them coming out to see the people and not staying hidden. And even if it did none of us would care!
 
I read through the forum thread and was pleasantly surprised by much of it. Often self styled experts show up on these topics and make conjecture without supporting experience or direct knowledge. I will quote and address (based upon my experience) the issues brought up by the one that pontificated:

For starters: Absolute minimum required size tank is 120 gal, larger is better.
FALSE with qualification. This is only true of the larger animals, O. vulgaris and O. maya (we don't see O. maya but it is similar to O. vulgaris and is being raised as food in Mexico, I am hoping some may show in the pet trade). We do recommend starting with a minimum of 55 gallon tank with sump and prefer to see 65 - 75 gallon main tank. There is only one commonly kept and not dangerous, O. mercatoris, that is just fine in the size you currently have and it would be lost in anything much larger.

And they are extremely strong and all rock needs to be glued solidly down lest the octo pull it over onto itself and die.
FALSE You do want to arrange the rocks in a sturdy fashion and larger animals (I have never had a merc to move a rock) will often move them around if the arrangement is not to their liking and when they are about to brood. Death by rock rearrangement has never been recorded on TONMO.

You cannot keep any other creatures in the tank with it that you do not intend for it to eat, because it will.
TRUE Generally speaking this is true, like many animals, a species only tank is required. There are a few animals that can be added for interest and as clean-up crew.

Most importantly you cannot have it in such a setting where it might get startled, such as by you walking or moving too closely in its vicinity. This may cause it to release its ink cloud in panic. This will require an immediate almost 100 percent water change or the octopus will die.
FALSE Octopuses DO need several dens where they can FULLY hide and be comfortable (don't skimp on the Live Rock so you will be able to see your animal more, it will have the opposite effect) but normal day to day traffic is not a problem and is more likely to make the animal more active/interactive over time. We keep ours in the eating area where they see us at regular daily times. They see us calmly eating but they also see the dogs running around and a lot of through traffic as it is the access to the garage and a central traffic point in the house. We highly recommend a skimmer to handle inking. In general inking is small and rare and a skimmer will handle it. We do recommend a NORMAL water change (2-5 gallons) during an inking event but unless it is very heavy (rare) the skimmer will remove most of it before you can change the water. Ink is interesting. There are basically two kinds, a thin and a thick. The thick (used for pseudo morphs) can often be removed with a fine shrimp net or turkey baster. What inking we do see is usually done in the first month or two. Inking in a shipping bag, however, is almost always fatal.

It requires dim light at most, meaning that you are not likely going to see much of it.
TRUE and FALSE. Octopuses would be happy with ambient light only but normal T lighting (halide is too strong, compact fluorescent common but should not be reef intensive). There are noctural (night active), diuranal(day active) and crepuscular(sunrise and sunset active) octopuses. With the nocturnals, we recommend adding a red light at night to allow you to watch the animal and still give it a night quality to the lighting (I usually have a red light, inaddition to my normal tank lighting on the crepuscular animals as well). How often you will see the animal is very dependent on the individual animal, its natural active time, its age and the species. Diurnal animals do need a dark period and become nervous if you don't provide one (I call it sleep, there are technical arguments/questions on the use of the term but dark down time is necessary)

The mention of double-hulling the tank to keep octo and heater totally away from each other was noted above. It is highly recommended to keep the heater (if needed, often it is not - if the tank stays a consistent temperature between 75-78 for a tropical species, no heater is needed) where the octopus can't touch it. This is another good argument for a sump.

Add on the extremely short lifespan as Arakkis notes and you are talking about a monumental expense and effort, for a very low enjoyment factor, for a very short time.
TRUE/? lifespan is short but exenses to keep them are not monumental (I have found the dwarf more expensive to feed than the large ones though). Most octopuses will eat thawed table shrimp and most any crab. Mussels are messy so mine don't get them often but I do keep live clams (the kind you buy at the seafood counter on ice) in most of the tanks that are occasionally eaten. The larger ones can be fed blue crab claws and we get them from our international markets by picking through the live crab bins and then freezing them (whole crabs don't freeze well and can pollute the meat). Occasional crawfish and live fiddler crabs round out the menu. Hatchings, on the other hand, ARE very expensive to try to feed and chances are not good for their survival. Low enjoyment is in the eye of the keeper of course, I will say that they require patience and persistance to have the highest levels of interaction.

I understand the fascination with octopi and share it. The first time I saw one of these dwarf/mini types I lusted to have it too. But I just have to urge you to withstand this temptation. I would hate to see these become some kind of a fad in the hobby. Above and beyond our own personal issues the last thing we need to be doing is puting any more stress on the populations of any sea creatures, or any wild creatures for that matter.
We do worry about the cephalopods that are losing habitat (see the exotics forum) or are dangerous and do not support their keeping. The ones we do keep are not endangered and some are harvested for food. If we do see captive breeding, it is more likely to come from the food industry as a side line than from the aquarium trade out of practicality.

If you've ever seen the figures on how many birds, for instance, die in capture or shipping to fulfil the demand in the hobby market you know how devastating to populations it can be. (Yes there are captive breeding programs but they never seem to make a dent in the wild-capture market.)
I can't address this directly, there are definitely shipping losses and octopuses must be shipped overnight with a lot of oxygen and even then we lose some. I can suggest that you look at animals coming from crab traps (by catch of the crabbing industry) if you are concerned with reducing wild populations. The aquarium trade that offers these animals acquires them from crabbers that would otherwise use them as bait (octopuses eat their main catch). Any extended life beyond the crab pot is more than it would have outside the aquarium trade. Most animals are not collected this way but you will find some in South FL.

The last brings to mind another point worth mentioning to new keepers. Wild caught octopuses will not have all their arms. Those same crabs do fight back or win a battle or two. The arms will grow back but often new keepers confuse the natural loss with collection methods.
 
Thank you for breaking that down for me. :smile: I didn't really know for sure how sensetive octos were to movement so I decided to keep it away from all the activity of the house. I probably won't do that now. It'd be nice to have it where we can see the tank.
 
I was really happy to have been given this site link. Thanks for the welcome!
My wife usually likes aquariacentral too. She generally gets good advice there.
 

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