jkprules;104776 said:
I talked to Tom's Tropicals and he said some species just can't handle the water in certain areas regardless of if it was purified or not. He said sometimes theres just trace elements that are missing or present that the octopus just cant handle and they don't last but a few hours. I'm inclined to believe him as he is refunding me for the octopus. Has anyone else had this problem? He recommended I try another species. Have people had luck with the bimacs marine deopot live are supposedly offering?
hmm. Sounds like they might be talking about the copper problem. Looking back, you don't say if you use RO/DI water or if you've confirmed that the tank is copper-free... If the tank has had freshwater fish in it, particularly, which were treated with copper-based medicines it can leave a permanent residue that cephs are very sensitive to, even in very small amounts.
It would be interesting to know if this is what they're talking about, or if it's something else. "Even if it's been purified" seems suspicious to me, since RO/DI water is pretty well-established around here as being safe for use with cephs, and it should be extremely pure if the RO system is working right. If they were speaking more generically, though, maybe there's something in your tank that's adding back impurities, or your salt mix or something has some issues. This may be just a summary way of them saying "yeah, that happens sometimes, and it's usually something that's not your fault and you couldn't have predicted, so don't feel bad about it," but if they have something more specific in mind, it would be good to find out.