What are you feeding your octopus?

[DHyslop]

for your wallet, yes. Most LFS I've seen charge $5-10 for an emerald crab. You don't want to have to buy one every day!

Dan

 

[joefish84]

ive been feeding mine little children and puppies!!!! muhahahahaha!

 

[cuttlegirl]

What, no kitties???

 

[njfish77]

Well i wouldnt mind feeding em every other day or so. What about peppermint shrimp, coral banded shrimp, flame scallops?

 

[DHyslop]

Emerald crabs aren't very big--I don't think your octo would be very happy only being fed one every other day.

Why don't you order fiddler crabs from the www.aquaculturestore.com? You'd get a dozen for what your LFS would cost you for one emerald crab. Throw some thawed frozen shrimp in the mix and you can get by without paying $300/month for food (or $150 if you only fed "every other day").

Dan

 

[Nancy]

Peppermint shrimp are expensive, too. Of course, your octo will eat emerald crabs and peppermint shrimp, but the fiddler crabs are better suggestion.

Nancy

 

[njfish77]

Thanks ill look into the fiddlers. I was just wondering if it was healthy to feed these as a treat.

 

[joefish84]

no kitties give them indigestion!!!!! and fur balls

 

[Castor]

How about "Altoids, the curiously strong mint?"

Just kidding, I like fiddlers. Rather, Henry used to like fiddlers.

 

[DarkTerror]

Just wondering, is it possible to feed baby octopuses "sea monkeys"?

 

[DHyslop]

Nope. "sea monkeys" also go by the names of brine shrimp and Artemia. They have extremely little nutritional value. Some researchers have tried raising hatchlings on them, and they invariably are dead within a week or two from malnutrition.

Just about nothing eats Artemia naturally. Hatchlings have a little bit of nutritional value and are often fed to Mysis shrimp, but are two small to be fed to octos. If you ever see a pet store that is feeding sea monkeys to their critters (particularly sea horses) stop shopping there.

Dan

 

[cephjedi]

Artemia hatchlings are nutritious if fed within 24 hours of hatching, but after that there isn't much left for predators to metabolize. After that, they're about as nutritious as Twinkies.

That said, I've recently learned that some of the few studies yielding success with rearing small egged octopuses used adult artemia! Then again the other interesting factoid was: small-egged plantonic larvae also select food items their own size. Ha! I think I could probably live on Twinkies if I ate 220 pounds of them at a sitting!

Artemia are among the food items we will be offering our small egged soon-to-be hatchlings. The other offerings: Greenwater, rotifers, free swimming and benthic copepods, amphipods, paleomonetes shrimp larvae and lysmata shrimp larvae.

We'll see what happens!

Cheers, CephJedi

 

[cephjedi]

UPDATE:

I double checked my data and It's important that you guys know: The small-egged octos that were reared with Artemia were only reared to 30 days, and even then the artemia were enriched with selco and microalgae. So it almost completely invalidates my last post.

To modify the analogy appropriately: Sure, I could live on twinkies if they were stuffed with spinach and broccoli.

Oh and: yuck!

C-ya, CJ

 

[Nancy]

Do you mean that they died after thirty days, or were switched to other food?

Nancy

 

[Bimacfanatic]

I have a bimac, and I feed him hermit crabs and pieces of squid.
Had to train him to eat squid pieces by wiggling them, until he learned
the taste. He, by himself, killed and ate a sheep crab that was bigger
than he was. Anyway thats my story.