BOB IS BACK!!!!!

[stevesfish]

can anyone tell me if an octopus will eat another octopus? today i received a nice little 1" bimac from Jack @ fishsupply.com. about 2 minutes later, the funniest thing happened!

BOB IS BACK!

i left the room for 2 minutes and came back to suddenly find 2 in my tank!

i'm sooo happy he's alive, but now i'm worried because bob is about 1/2" - 3/4" and Bob II is a full 1". The big one keeps jumping on top of the little one and then the little one slides out from underneath and they run apart.

is he going to eat him? or are they just playing?

thanks.

 

[tonmo]

That's too funny...

I defer to the community for advice on their cohabitation... I know octopuses are generally solitary creatures, although I saw a documentary on Discovery last year that showed two totally different octopuses together... a big one with a little one on its back. Seemed to be getting along fine... They certainly weren't bimacs, but who knows? Maybe Bob and Bob II will be best buddies. Should be interesting to see, definitely keep us posted.

 

[stevesfish]

Jack from fishsupply.com seemed to think it would be ok, but when i asked, i didn't realize they were drastically different in size. he told me that since they were both tank raised, they were going to be used to other octos in their domain.

anyone had any experience with this outside of temporary storage at a fish shipper?

 

[corw314]

That's wonderful!!! Hope they cohabitate peacefully!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carol

 

[stevesfish]

so far so good. just got home and found each of them sitting in front of a rock looking at me. the smaller one is a bit more skittish, but they both appear to be heathly and breathing. the larger one is actually quite bold and has walked up to the front glass a few times to get a better looks at me. every now and then he chases the little one a little bit, but never seems to make too much of an effort to actually catch him.

i'm thinking of renaming them Tom & Jerry.

 

[Colin]

hah! good news!

you should probably get away with it but the fact that they are captive raised isn't the factor. Bimacuoildes just seem to be one speies out of a few that will tolerate the presence of a conspecific. most wont.

Better make sure that you have plenty of hiding places and make sure that you keep them well fed, especially the big one!!!

Last year, i got two bimacs at once to try to rear them together but unluckily one died of shipping stress and that was the end of that!

So, i am very interested to read about any info you can share on their interactions as the only species i have seen living together is Eledone chirrosa...

Thanks for letting us know

 

[stevesfish]

well, so far so good. last night i walked in on Tom sucking a hermit crab out of his shell.

this morning i looked in on them and found tom sitting in "his spot" dead center in front of the rocks eyeballing me (he seems fearless) and little jerry in the corner, dug into the sand under a rock.

this weekend i'm going to give them 2 fiddler crabs to play with.

 

[corw314]

I'm soooo jealous!!!! Any pictures yet???

Carol

 

[stevesfish]

they're not quite big enough for photos yet, hopefully in a few weeks. right now all you'd see is a little grey dot with legs