[Octopus]: Maurice my octopus species??

Yesterday I bought a bunch (15-20) of live seawater shrimps and put them into the tank. Although I wasn't up the whole night Maurice didn't really seem to come out. But this afternoon he seemed to look for them. In fact Maurice almost seemed to be scared to be surrounded by so many shrimps. I wanted him to be a little bit more active so I lifted up the rock that he was onto. After very little time he came out and swam into the water. When he saw a shrimp he got so scared that he inked. So I fastly caught his ink with a bucket and put it out of the tank. In addition I put another activated carbon mat into the tank. Isn't it add that an octo gets scarred because of shrimps?
 
I think that's too many shirmp at once - and also, disrupting his den probably further made him feel uncomfortable. I believe the recommended approach is to keep a separate tank for feeders, then add 2 or maybe 3 shrimp at a time, and see if he takes to them. They are sensitive creatures -- once they are settled, it is best to only make small / incremental changes to their environment.
 
It's good you got the ink out; if you can remove more without being too disruptive, all the better. And yes, I would think it would be a good idea to only have about two shrimp in the tank. If you can safely remove them, I would recommend that -- and a disclaimer -- I am not a ceph keeper -- I'm just basing this feedback on what I assume the experts might say, based on 20 years of running the forum! Good luck and please keep us posted.
 
The animal can for sure be stressed by having too many shrimps in the tank. In fact, the shrimps may actively attack and pick at the mantle of the octopus. I agree with tonmo's advice, your animal won't ever need more than 1-3 shrimps in the tank at a time.

Carbon won't do much to alleviate any negative symptoms that come from inking. You will need a protein skimmer to help with ink in the water but if you are able to work gently with the animal and prevent them from inking you may be able to get away without one.
 
I wonder whether Maurice seems to want to hide whenever I get to near to him?
Maybe because I have interrupted his 'silence' a few times? He still seems to be active at night time!
 
Each octopus has its own personality but I have found that spending at least an hour a day near the tank but not trying to interact with it. We keep our primary octo tanks where we eat so they see us every night at supper. I can't guarantee this will help but try it and see if you have the time. They are naturally shy creatures.
 
It could have to do with the fact that his tank is in the basement. I just shot another photo.
 

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It could have to do with the fact that his tank is in the basement. I just shot another photo.
I tried keeping an octopus in my basement tank, but I found it was hard to get enough time to socialize it as well as they do in the living room tank. We set up our bikes in the basement so we would be spend time down there on a regular basis, it’s helped with the rest of the fish!
Spending regular time with it will help it be more friendly!
 
I tried keeping an octopus in my basement tank, but I found it was hard to get enough time to socialize it as well as they do in the living room tank. We set up our bikes in the basement so we would be spend time down there on a regular basis, it’s helped with the rest of the fish!
Spending regular time with it will help it be more friendly!

Sedna has a good point here, I wonder if there is a correlation to the amount of daylight the tank gets and the amount of activity the animal exhibits? Could be a cool thing to experiment with.
 
Sedna has a good point here, I wonder if there is a correlation to the amount of daylight the tank gets and the amount of activity the animal exhibits? Could be a cool thing to experiment with.
I totally agree with that! A lot has to do with which species they are, but my upstairs octopus tank is near the window, and they usually end up pretty social!
 
I have wondered about light slightly differently. How much and how total is their dark time? I noticed with O. mercatoris, it seemed that never giving them full darkness (always with a place to hide and red lights on at night but not ever all lights off) seemed to help with training a reasonable and observation time. It appeared that if all lights were off during part of the night, that is the time the animals would come to hunt.
 

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