• 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.

new to the octopus world

KLtcb;122655 said:
thats awesome. i was reading i think on here an article about octopus care and it said that even unmated females can lay infertile eggs. which means that they arent hatchable? is it just luck that you buy a female and its already pregnent and then has babies? it seems that since their lifespans are unfortunetley short, it would be very cool to raise the babies and just keep it goin.. how does that work?

It's usually bad luck. Octopuses can store sperm for months, so if the octo was wild-caught, she will most likely lay fertile eggs. Unfortunately, (almost all) octos die shortly after laying eggs, and the babies are very hard to raise in captivity. Large-egged octos are difficult but possible, with a whole lot of effort, resources, food cost, and so forth (and even then they have a relatively low success rate) and small-egged species have never been raised anywhere except in a professional laboratory (we get someone trying every few months, and no one has been successful.)

To hear about some successes with large egged species, look at gholland's and dwhatley's posts about their mercatoris mothers, Varys and Trapper. Mercatoris are not the most sociable octos, though, although with these examples they seem easier to raise to adulthood than other large-egged species. Zyan's experience is described in the TFH "ceph issue" article, but I don't think it's online anywhere yet.
 
thanks for the info monty and the heads up chef reef, would just upgrading the skimmer be all i need? or would i also wanna get a canister filter?

thanks for the reply jean, its awesome to see kids in my age group that are also interested, in my area most of the people are older who are in the hobby.

Mike

Random BUT i saw Pineapple Express and just FYI, AWESOME MOVIE.
 
Iv never had a canister filter so i couldn't tell you. i just run my skimmer and phosban reactors, one with phos remover and the other with carbon. I guess it wouldn't hurt. Although i thought canister filters were for FW systems?

and i just turned 20 on the 1st :P no longer a teenager o_O
 
Canisters can be used on either FW or SW (assuming the model is SW safe - most are). The biggest problem with a canister on either system is the pain it is to change the filtration and the lack of attention they get, often adding to the pollution, not helping remove it. One of the best features is being able to run carbon in a forced flow enclosure and there is a visible difference in water clarity if you keep the carbon clean. Carbon only filtration is often the primary use in a SW environment with other filtration methods for waste breakdown (live rock) and protein removal (skimmer). I still keep my very, very old Magnum pieced together because it has a clear canister and I can see the condition of the outer poly filter and that gives me a clue to when I need to swap the carbon. All the others (including the new style Magnum) are opaque. However, Octane's tank (octopus) and my FOWLR tank (sumpless) are the only aquariums where I have them in use (2 out of 7 primaries). The fish tank canister is much larger and is used for waste removal as well as water clarity because of the unusual set up (4' tall x 13 dia with a bottom drain).
 
Yes, with qualifications. If you can minimize the waste that goes into the caniser (I run my to and from my sump, after initial particle filtration) and use it for carbon only filtration (not with other types of "biologic" media because of the inevitable nitrate factory syndrome), then I think it is a very good idea for an octo tank. If you can adjust the return to allow the water to make air contact, it can also help provide more the CO2/O2 exchange as well.

Note that during your cycle you will want water circulation but minimal filtration.
 
Chef Reef;122695 said:
so basically you run it through floss or a fliter sock of some sort first and use the canister only as a big carbon filter?

Yes, that would be my recommendation for using a full time canister. However, there are many successful tanks set up in many different configurations (including my own) and hopefully others will chime in with their experiences. Marine aquariums are still an evolving art form and not a science :wink:. At one time, we killed and sterilized everything that was not a fish before putting it into the tank.:goofysca:
 
one more thing if you guys can help me out. i know this is a cephalapod forum but alot of the experienced people who answer questions on the SWF.com forums act like its a favor when they answer a question, so if you guys don't mind i feel more comfortable asking here.

like i said in the first post my current tank is a 75g FOWlR. i have 2 4 inch Volitan lionfish and a chainlink moray and a white cheek moray.

a few days ago i noticed the 2 lions had dots on there eyes so i was thinking maybe a parasite like ich or a bacterial issue, i watched for a day or two to see if it got worse or better. today i got a water test, ph was 7.8 so i buffed it up a bit, will test later to see if more is needed and the only thing high was my trates but its a predator tank so thats not a big problem. i also noticed that the eyes were clearing up but one of the lions have ich on the tail fin now. one person said use kick ich and another said it doesnt work and to use copper treatment but my sea urchin is in there and he was the first invert i got so you know how that is, im not trying to kill anything in the process. any advice or experience to help me out?

again sorry for posting about fish but you guys are much nicer on this board.

Thanks in advance,

Mike
 
If you use any meds (especially copper or formalin - examples only - not my recommendation as I don't think either is safe for non-scaled fish and I can't help with what might be safest) set up a quarantine tank and do daily water changes. DO NOT use meds in your reef!!! You can use a large rubber maid type container (sometimes referred to as a sweater box), it does not need to be an aquarium, but you will need some kind of filter and aeration and need to do daily water changes while treating. Also you may want some sort of cover over the strange environment as I lost my dwarf when he jumped out of the tank.

Here is a post I found that might offer some help. The recommendation is to reduce the salinity in a QT to try to get the parasites to "explode" without killing the fish. I will have to admit that I have not had a lot of experience or luck the few times I tried reducing the salt levels (I don't keep many fish) but it is less dangereous than trying chemicals on scalesless fish.

Lion Fish has ICK-- Help!!! - Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community
 
also if people it swf.com keep giving you a hard time or are a pain in the butt try reefcentral.com best around for reef and non ceph care.

also if you can get a picture of the lion, its eye and the tail i can help identify it for you.
 

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