Feeding

[b25oshea]

Afer 5 months, the tank is finally prepared, and I plan on ordering a bimac from fishsupply. However, I wished to know whether live food from a local Asian supermarket would be safe to feed to an octopus. The store has two bins, overflowing with live blue crabs, and commercial clams. Is there any risk of contamination in the tank with either chemicals or pathogens?

Michael O'Shea

 

[Nancy]

Hi Michael,

Some of our bimac owners are buying live food from seafood markets.

I buy from an upscale seafood market because that's the only place nearby where I can get very fresh scallops that have nothing sprayed on them or added. You might have to ask the place you are buying from about each type of seafood, and do tell them that it's for your octopus!

If you expect to order a small bimac, you may find that it cannot deal with a clam at first. Mine still does not realize that a clam is food, a month after his arrival here. A blue crab is very large, too. Maybe you should have a back-up plan using something like pieces of fresh scallops for food until you find out what your octo's food preferences are. If you can get small crabs, that might be good, too, or try some of the small live shrimp.

Please keep us posted about your bimac!

Nancy

 

[sideways]

I seriously doubt it, a lot of us feed our octos live or fresh food from the market without a problem. You could always ask them if they've treated the tanks or animals with anything.

 

[b25oshea]

Feeding

Unfortunately, the seafood store is in a heavily Vietnamese neighborhood, so it is doubtful they would understand what I was saying.
As for the fresh scallops, are the ones you have used dead and cut up, or are they live and packaged?
Also, I noticed today that at my local freshwater pet shop, they had ghost shrimp in a dilapidated-looking tank that may have been dosed with contaminates.

Michael O'Shea

 

[b25oshea]

Feeding

Unfortunately, the seafood store is in a heavily Vietnamese neighborhood, so it is doubtful they would understand what I was saying.
As for the fresh scallops, are the ones you have used dead and cut up, or are they live and packaged?
Also, I noticed today that at my local freshwater pet shop, they had ghost shrimp in a dilapidated-looking tank that may have been dosed with contaminates.

Michael O'Shea

 

[sideways]

I know that my bimac and Lawfish's bimac (both from fishsupply) are pretty confused about whether or not ghost shrimp are food. Roxy lets them walk right past her. If the tank looks unhealthy, forget it.

As far as the Vietnamese neighborhood goes...if you really care about your ceph you should study up on some vietnamese...c'mon man! Show some initiative!