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Octo counterparts

Joined
Jan 16, 2004
Messages
53
Is there any reason I would not want any of the following in a bimac tank?

* Mexican turbo snails (will they be eaten?)
* Sifting sand star, knobby star (again, will they be eaten?)
* Medium-sized sponge (will it deoxygenate the water?)

Are there any fish (seahorses or small, quick fish) that can peacefully coexist with an octopus? Thanks in advance.
 
Snails will probably be eaten, the sand stars will be ok, not sure about the sponge, seahorses will be eaten, or in Pudge's case, rode around the neck, small fish will be eaten or pester the octo. :smile:
 
Hi,

While Ollie ate some of the Mexican Turbo snails, she didn't eat all of them. I don't think they're as yummy as plain old turbo snails. So go ahead and try them.

Starfish won't be eaten.

I've had very small sponges in the tank, don't know about larger ones.

No fish!

Nancy
 
Are there any fish (seahorses or small, quick fish) that can peacefully coexist with an octopus? Thanks in advance.

People have tried but i dont think there has really been anything considered a sucess. Even lionfish get nailed in the end.

I would imagine that if the tank was big enough and the octopus was big and the fish were really small it may work but its probably out of the reach of home aquarists of all but the biggest tanks.

Anything i have ever tried has been octofood!


I did have an orange sponge with a bimac for a while and it was fine, other than it got moved about a bit by the octo
 
Colin said:
Even lionfish get nailed in the end.

A friend of mine keeps some quite large seahorses with a bandensis and they're doing quite well. But I wouldn't dare try after what happened to the lionfish ( btw I just got a fu man chu lionfish in another tank).
 
in the past i managed to keep a bimac, a bi-color angel and a large hairy hermit crab in a 46g tank for about 6 months, all three were about the same size, the hermit crab got a hold of the angel and killed it and ate it, about a month after that the bimac decided to eat the hermit, one week after that the bimac escaped and i found him on the floor, the octo seemed to like to interact with the fish they would follow each other around as if they were playing follow the leader, i thing the octo got bored with the fish gone and turned on the hermit, the being really bored decided to seek out new places.

i currently have briareus with 3 stars a red tree sponge, black and white damsel, and a little yellow sea horse, have not had a problem yet
 
thats pretty good going :smile: but i'd suggest that this is the exception and not the rule......

how long have the co-habited?
 
the stars and the sponge were there before the octo (they do a great job handling the octo detrius) about 5months the damsel has been there for about 1 maybe 1 1/2 months, the seahorse is new, only about 2 weeks
 
its interesting and something worth more attention.. i often wonder if a mandarin would be okay or a similar poisonous fish.. they may taste nasty to suckers???
 
i find it very interesting when you can get things to co habitate that arent supposed to be able to, but of course your always taking your chances
i curently have a pretty big golden spotted moray in my reef tank, he is much much bigger than anything in there but he doesnt touch anything, it only eats the food i put on a feeder stick for it, whats really cool is watching the coral banded shrimp clean his mouth :smile:
 
heh, very good!

i used to have a big undulatus moray... miss having them and that pic brought it back :smile:
 
i love predators, they are usually impressive and in some cases very gracefull (sharks) unfortunately my wife does not like them she likes all the "pretty swimmy fish" this led to my experimentation with putting predetors in a reef, this was an acceptable solution to my wife.
my ultimate goal would be to have an octo roaming the reef, ive heard rumors of this happening but it seems to me unlikely, all those little reef fish would be to tempting
 

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