Hello, my name is Mark. Its great to finally be among such a large family of cephalopod enthusiasts. I've been monitoring the forum for some time but until now never found much need to become a member. My first captive octopus was an O. bimaculatus that I had acquired nearly 27 years ago when I was a senior in high school. After about 4 months, she ended up laying eggs but being a small-egg species, the paralarvae never had much of a chance. I of course attempted to feed them Artemia nauplii enriched with Chlorella in hopes of rearing at least one to the "crawling stage." The paralarvae fed heavily but alas, none of them survived much past two weeks most likely due to nutritional deficiencies. Nevertheless, it was a highly rewarding experience. At the time I was an employee at the local pet store in Westmont, IL and eventually managed it while I attended college until its closing in 1999, during which I had numerous opportunities to work with several other Octopus species. Afterwards, I continued to maintain a few mini-reef aquariums but found octopods to be somewhat unavailable so I more or less gave up the search. Now that I'm a father to my 5 year old son who himself is equally enthralled with cephalopods, I am eager to rear octopods once again, preferably large-egg species such as O. bimaculoides or O. mercatoris and other captive-bred cephs if possible.
Mark
Mark