Baby octopus?

[crazy8svt]

How hard is it to raise a octopus from eggs, and what should you feed them? I have a opportunity to get free eggs and mom too if I want.

 

[Animal Mother]

Depends on the species. Some lay large eggs which hatch as tiny but fully developed octopuses and people have some success with those. Some lay small eggs and so far those babies have never been successfully raised, at least that's documented.

Any idea what species? Briareus, Bimac, and some dwarves lay large eggs. Seems most other species lay small ones.

 

[monty]

Depends on the species. Some lay large eggs which hatch as tiny but fully developed octopuses and people have some success with those. Some lay small eggs and so far those babies have never been successfully raised, at least that's documented.

Any idea what species? Briareus, Bimac, and some dwarves lay large eggs. Seems most other species lay small ones.

I think small-egged ones have been raised in laboratory environment, but it's still practically impossible for non-professionals.

 

[Octavarium]

What is so difficult about raising them in a controlled environment? Is it the food, or some other reason?

 

[monty]

I think the food is part of it, but also their planktonic lifestyle and tiny size lead to them being sucked into the filtration and so forth. Also cannibalism, since in the wild they spread out to a much wider area. There may be other reasons, too; the experience of a typical tonmoer who has small-egged octos hatch in their tank is that they're swimming about for under a day and then they're all gone, but I don't know that anyone's really figured out why...

Another problem that happens occasionally is that the mother dies about the time they hatch, and her death causes some water quality problems. The babies seem even more sensitive to water quality than adults, so that may be part of it as well.

There are probably other issues that some of the research folks know about, those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.