Help for a new Octopus owner?

[Wayfarer091]

Hey guys I have been reading up about the Two spot Octopus for awhile now and your care sheets have been a priceless source of information. I was wondering though because Octopus are such short lived. do any of you breed your own? or when one dies do you just buy another?

How hard is it to raise the eggs?

How many eggs do they lay?

Is this even a good idea?

As for the setup I am going to get. it will be a 180 gallon tank with sump.
The care sheet said 50 gallons is enough for one Bimac so if I divided it in half I could keep two. that’s 90 gallons per Octopus that’s ok right?

anyway I would appreciate your opinions on keeping two Octopus in the same tank for breeding

thanks.

 

[Animal Mother]

You could keep two if you make sure the divider is octo-proof. This is harder than it sounds. Another member had a divided tank and one of them slipped into the others side, and killed it. Getting a "Breeding pair" sounds great, but it's a longshot. They will most likely harass each other and possibly kill each other. They are solitary animals in their natural environment, only getting together to mate. Otherwise, 90 gallons per octopus with a sump sounds great. 180 gallon for a single Vulgaris or Briareus would be superb, and Briareus can be tank-raised.

If you get a species that lays large eggs then yes, you can possibly raise some of the babies. Zyan raised a lot of Bimac hatchlings and provided many members here with young octos not long ago. Providing them with live foods seems to be the biggest challenge, other than keeping them from killing and eating each other as they are cannibalistic. Not too hard if you have the facilities to do it.

Take your time. The experience is much more rewarding when patience is a priority.

 

[Wayfarer091]

Thank you Animal mother for your info

Here was what I was thinking, I would get both Octopus around the same time put them in there separate tanks. then I would keep them apart for awhile because I would not want the male to die right away. then after awhile...maybe 12 months I would bring them together to mate then they could go there separate ways. hopefully the female would have built a cave on her side all ready and then I would wait and see if I had little baby Octopus .

lol I really don’t know how they breed so that’s probably way off.

Is there any way I can get in contact with Zyan? seeing as he has raised Bimac young im sure he would have some valuable information for me

thanks again

 

[Nancy]

Hi and welcome to TONMO.com!

Zyan wrote an article about his experience raising bimacs. It appears with 5 other articles by TONMO.com members in the June 2007 issue of Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine. I think you can still buy back issues from the publisher.

So far, no one has had a good experience trying to keep more than one bimac, except for the people raising hatchlings together in large tanks.

Nancy

 

[monty]

Marinebio_guy has raised bimacs as well, I believe, although he has access to facilities hobbyists don't.

I don't know of anyone who's raised O. briareus, so I had assumed they were small-egged, but I just checked, and you're right, AM, that they are large-egged; I wonder why no one's been breeding them...

It is a pretty big endeavor, though... Zyan's article that Nancy mentioned is a good reference.

 

[Animal Mother]

Marinebio_guy has raised bimacs as well, I believe, although he has access to facilities hobbyists don't.

I don't know of anyone who's raised O. briareus, so I had assumed they were small-egged, but I just checked, and you're right, AM, that they are large-egged; I wonder why no one's been breeding them...

It is a pretty big endeavor, though... Zyan's article that Nancy mentioned is a good reference.

If I can get a healthy female Briareus Layla and I are up for the challenge. Something I've been considering for a few weeks now. I might be able to obtain a small Briareus in the next couple of weeks. Maybe.

 

[Wayfarer091]

Hey guys I decided to go with a test run b4 buying this huge 180 gallon tank.

I am going to get a 70 maybe 100gallon tank for one California two-spot.

At my LFS they feed there Octopus damselfish

my question is this. If I put in say 15-20 maybe 30 damselfish I know he will eat what he catches but my question is would having all those fish be overwhelming at all or would he gorge himself? along with the damsels he catches I would supplement his diet with shrimp/crab meat

is this ok?

 

[Nancy]

Well, as usual, the LFS is way off.

You don't feed your octopus damselfish. This is an agressive fish and you don't want this fish in an octopus tank. In fact, you don't want any fish in an octopus tank.

You don't really feed your octopus fish at all - you feed him crabs and shrimp. If you get one of the really young bimacs, you may have to go with amphipods and small crabs and snails at first.

So live crabs, live or frozen shrimp (you can keep some small shrimp in the tank - they're good scavengers) will be the main part of the diet. An occasional live mussel, cracked, is usually appreciated, which your bimac is a bit older, but it's messy in your tank.

As for the briareus, well, it's possible. We had someone here in Dallas a few years ago with a briareus with eggs. The day they hatched, three of us took some of them and tried to raise them in different ways - released into a large mature tank, kept in little floating cups and individually fed, and 6 into a 19 gallon mature tank with mysis, amphpods, copepods, snails and small crabs. The 19 gallon was mine. I had the best success - I thought they were all dead, but after 4 months, a little briareus showed itself. Now, that's not a huge success for any of us, but maybe you'd do better.

But remember, for your octopus to survive, you have to set up your tank properly and let it cycle - it should be 3 or 4 months before you add an octopus.

Nancy

 

[shipposhack]

I bet we would have more success trying to raise Briareus again. I would think they would be nearly the same as a Bimac. I would like to get my hands on O. Rubescens, but they are planktonic. The cephalopod page says they school though; Neato!