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PETCO $1 per gallon sale

asid61

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Feb 15, 2011
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I went to PETCO for a couple of 1 gallon aquariums to use as feeder tanks for a mantis shrimp to hold snails and hermits, and the guy there told me that they are having the $1 per gallon sale again!!! :biggrin2::biggrin2::biggrin2:
So instead of a mantis in my 10 gallon, It's going to be a feeder tank and I am buying a 40 gallon breeder. The 55 gallon is too tall for my mantle, so I'm going with the breeder.
Is a 40 gallon breeder too small for a bimac? I thought surface area mattered more than size.
If the 40 is too small, what are the other kinds I could put in it?
I am not planning to get an octo for another 6 months at least, so that I can become more experienced. (I have only been keeping a 10 gallon "reef" for 2 months). I am prepared to spend $20 a week on food. are 2-3 large hermits a day enough for one octopus?
Thanks in advance!
 
40 is still small volume wise and since you are planning to put it on your mantle, it assumes no sump for additional water and equipment (you will need some kind of filtration and a skimmer is highly recommended). As much as a mantle display would be attractive, it poses lots of problems for a high waste (large fish or an octopus) tank. Do they have anything 50+ that is lower and fits in your house? I have Little Bit in a 37 with a 15 gallon sump. She is a dwarf (Octopus joubini) and could go in something smaller but looking at the tank, I would not consider it large enough to a large hummelincki (slightly smaller and warm water but similar to a bimac. For a bimac you need a max temp of 72 and usually a chiller is required) and even with the sump would push the limits for a smaller one (and you never know what you will get). Aculeatus might do OK in a 40 breeder but they have quite long arms. How tall and long is the breeder? Keep in mind that octopuses live a short time so establishing a tank as an octopus tank needs to consider the long term and multiple animals. Species are not well known (or not known at all by many suppliers) and availability varies from year to year when species are known so establishing a tank that can accomodate availability is highly desireable.

Most octopuses will not survive on hermits. Some of the smaller animals will take them (most will accept them shelled as a treat) but something the size of a bimac will need larger food. Fiddler crabs are pretty much universally accepted and most mature animals will eat raw thawed table shrimp so your budget is fine but not your selection of food.

Where you may have excess in allocated in the food department, you likely have a shortage in the cost of maintenance. You will need a source of RO/DI water (many LFS will sell it and offer a discount if you bring your own container but many decide to make their own with an at home unit). Freshwater top off can be as much as 2 gallons a day (depending on your evaporation rate and tank size) and you will need to change out about 5 gallons a week of saltwater.
 
I can buy shrimp and fiddlers for my octo, but hermits are easier to get. I have a 75 GPD RO/DI unit.
I heard an aculeatus will be all right in a 29 gallon, and the 40 breeder is the same length, but wider.
The 40 breeder is 36x18x16 inches, but it is under a bookcase inset into the wall, so I only have about 20 inches vertical space in the back of the mantel. The front 6 inches, however, are not under the bookcase.
My mantel is about 5.5 feet long,
 
I'd say that you should spend the extra $15 for the 55 gallon, and put it on something besides your mantle. If the cost of a stand spoils the deal, just make one out of 2x3's, or find a sturdy piece of furniture on craigslist for cheap. Heck, even cinderblocks and a piece of plywood would get the job done (if its not to tall).
 
OK, I'll prob. save up for a stand, and If that is still too expensive, then I'll buy a bunch of cinderblocks.
 
If you're dead set on having it on your mantel, and it's five feet long with twenty inches of hight you might look into getting a custom built tank. My concern is the weight of the tank on your mantel. If it crashes for any reason(can't handle the weight, wood rots out, et cetra) you are looking at a whole lot of time and effort and money lost. Not to mention the damage to your house and other property.
 
I think in the long run you will be happier with the stand-alone as cleaning time can get pretty wet and drips will ultimately damage the bookcase. Since you are thinking in this direction now, heavily consider building/buying a stand that will let you have a 20+ gallon sump (used and scratched is quite fine and we love using our upgraded 35 acrylics for this since they are easy to drill). A sump will make maintenance much easier, octoproofing much simpler and all the ugly equipment can be placed away from the display with the added bonus of more water but not more real space requirement. To use a sump effectively, you will need to drill two exit and one inlet holes and plumb it but it is a hassel well worth the time and effort.

Since you are just starting with saltwater, an alternate stepping stone would be to buy a 35 gallon tank for a couple of mercatoris with the idea that it would become a sump for a larger tank in a year or more. A current caveate, however, is that we have not seen many mercs in two years. I have been exceedingly lucky to have acquired two other dwarfs and one merc so I have had my dwarfs all along but the aquisitions were a matter of extreme good fortune. If we could find O. joubini I would recommend them over O. mercatoris but don't know if multiples will work with this species. The other dwarf was my most favorite ever for a dwarf and a big favorite in general but I still have no idea what species he was and only two have surfaced (the other died in shipping to someone else).
 
Both threads start at the end of the original wild caught fertile female so be sure and go back and read the original parent threads. The page that I sent you to contains the links for the tank raised young of the original AND the tank bred young of mated sibblings from the first hatch. Neither GHolland nor I continued the cycle partially because they were already in bred and partially because we were never able to sex the offspring timely enough to swap.
 

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