captive bred bimacs

[clownfish]

I have been pondering over the idea of breeding bimacs. I have a sorce of wild caught bimacs and possably eggs. A 90 gallon, 30 gallon and 10 gallon,and 10 gallon sump all octo-proof. I feel I have the experience and time to breed them. I even have the food sorce. My one issue is if anyone would want them. To me it would seem like a waist to take the time and effort to breed octopus and get stuck with all the octopus I bred and have them kill each other.the plan is:

1.grow a large group of rotifers,AMPHIPODS,and mysid shrimp

2. get a wild caught bimac with eggs.

3. Import the female bimac to my 30 gallon.

4.take a small cluster of eggs in my 10 gallon

5. hand raise the small cluster by keeping a light air pump underneath, and gently rubbing the eggs. Let the mother bimac take care of the other ones.

6. Still offer frozen food to moma octopus.

7. wait, still do water changes.

8. once the eggs are close to hatching turn down power heads (I have a redsea wavemaster pro) or take the power heads out into my 90 gallon. add on my sponge filter to 30 gallon and 10 gallon.

9. Get lots of small clams,crabs,shrimp, and oysters for my 90 gallon.(easy for me because I live an hour away from the coast dont get me wrong its very cold LOL

10. once the octopus grow enough to eat small clams shrimp I will put them in the 90 gallon ware they wait to be shipped to there new home.

The octopus would be sold from my web site: www.thesaltwaterhobbyist.com

I understand how much work this is, none of this is offical I need input.

-Tom

 

[clownfish]

woops..
After Moma passes away i would split my 30 gallon with a glass divider, and put 2 mature octopus in it.(my 30 gallon has 3x filteration it needs). wait for either the octopus to show maiting movments or for them to try to fight. if maiting movments are shown. i would remove the divider and see what happens If they do breed The daddy octopus would be put in the 90 gallon wile I repeat the prosses of raising the young.

-The ending is a little bit glitchy sooo feel free to give negitive feed back on that. but over all I think it has a small chance of working

 

[DHyslop]

I don't know if a 90, a 30 and a 10 would be enough space. We had a bit of a discussion earlier about raising bimacs on this thread:

Octopus bimaculoides

The reason I haven't pursued this is space. The fry are best raised in a number of long, shallow plastic trays with individual PVC rearing chambers. Here's a link to how Dr. Wood makes his chambers:

Octopus rearing chambers

You will need to rear food. If you have 500 hatchling bimacs, each eating three small mysids a day, you need over ten thousand shrimp per week. Even if you lived on the beach and could collect every day you couldn't come up with this.

Here's a good link on how to rear mysids. Note that this system will produce about 2000 mysis per week. Even if you let half of your fry fend for themselves (eat eachother), you would still need to double the size of this rearing system.

Raising mysid shrimp as a home aquarium food

Good luck!

Dan

 

[91lxstang]

if you could do this that woul be awesome!!!!!!

 

[clownfish]

I could constuct a rearing chamber easily but it would only be about 6 feet by 1 ft. and even if thats not enough I guess I could clear out a space in my cellar to put several rearing tanks. I also have several 55 gallon drumms never used in my back yard that could easly become mysid shrimp tanks for the summer. Things start to become a problem if I have 100 or so grown bimacs that no one buys. then things get $$$.possably looking into cutting a deal with fish supply.com or another seller of octopus would be wize. i'm not looking to make money I just dont want to have to watch a bunch of grown bimacs die
because i couldent afford to feed them.

thanks,

-Tom

 

[joefish84]

there is an easy solution to the rearing chambers...

get an 8" pvc pipe that is as long as your room. cut a 45 out the top of it lenght wise (this will be the top of the tank). then about 1/2 inch from one of the cuts make another cut only a blades width down the length of the pipe stopping about 3 inches from the ends(then screen this over for it will be your over flows). then cut thin sheets of plexiglass in circles big enough that you can glue them inside the pipe as dividers. by doing this you can create as many sections as you want. the next step is to just cap off the ends. then you need to make a spray bar for the returns. for the sump you simply get a pipe about 12" wide and the same length as the smaller one and cut it in half length wise... this will be placed just under the pipe tank. when the water flows out the slit in the front of the tank it will flow down and run off the bottom of it and fall into the big pipe underneth where you can set up all your filtration etc... anyway you get the idea... whats great about these is that you can set up a bunch of them without taking up much space and still provide the specimines with enough water volume... if your really interested in this i could draw u some plans that ive made smaller versions of

 

[DHyslop]

I hope those drums aren't metal. Also, like the article implies, many smaller tanks are better than a few big ones for mysids: You need to be constantly separating the little shrimp from the big ones to minimalize cannibalism, which is pretty tough to do in a 55 gallon drum.

The other thing to consider is the cost of raising that many mysids: I would guess you're looking at a coffee-can worth of Artemia eggs every two weeks or so. That would cost about $40 a week, or $160 a month (not including Selcon).

Think about what they're going to eat once they get a bit older, too. Sach's has real good prices for fiddler crabs, 10 for $13. Say you've got 100 bimacs that make it to the size where they can eat fiddlers, it comes to about $130/day or $4000/month. I'd be worried though because I doubt they can supply in this kind of volume.

How much were you hoping to sell these for?

 

[clownfish]

I havent realy decided but something around a bimac about
$50-$60. once things get a little smoother maby $40. Another thing is its the begining of summer. There is a garage sale every block in my town. Im sure I can pick up a few small tanks to rear the shrimp in.LOL its starting to seem like my cellar is going to look like some secret lab you see in the movies. I'm looking for a way to breed fiddlers crabs or clams. Something to feed the octopus before they get shipped.

-Tom

 

[joefish84]

ive bred fiddlers before in my tanks its actually pretty easy just give them some spots with sand to get out of the water and they do fine

 

[DHyslop]

ive bred fiddlers before in my tanks its actually pretty easy just give them some spots with sand to get out of the water and they do fine

How long does it take until you see baby fiddlers? I'm just wondering if Tom can come up with enough space, time and money to breed 3000+ fiddlers.

Dan

 

[clownfish]

If I set up a few shallow tubs in my cellar i could probably breed fiddler crabs. From what I hear they breed several times a year, are born plankton sized and then grow into full crabs. hundreds of larva are produced. I wonder how difficult it is to raise them from that stage.

I am also looking at common shore shrimp from aquaculturestore.com. This could be a good food for small octopus.and they are easy to breed. I can breed rotifers easly. That seems like a pritty complete food cycle for the octopus.amphipods, rotifers, mysid,shore shrimp,fiddlers. should I offer another food sorce for the octopus fry?
I sent an email to the guy thats getting me bimacs to see if he could get octopus eggs.I'll update you once I get a responce.(it will be a few months until he gets hear so I have time to set up the food tanks.)
(:

hear is a pic of a possable rearing tank.

 

[joefish84]

usually takes about a month after they disperse the eggs. one thing that you have to do though is seperate the parents from the water area or take them out to a different tank cause they will filter feed their own young