Mercatoris care tips

[DWhatley]

Let's backup a little so we have a clearer understanding of your environment. You said you "distilled" the water for days. Do you mean you left it out to allow the chlorine to evaporate (this is typical for freshwater environments)? Distillation is another process (distilled water you buy from the grocery may be used, evaporation will not remove potentially harmful metals - the DI part of an RO/DI system).

What are you using for salt? You can ONLY use aquarium salt designed for a marine environment - there are multiple brands. Salts designed for freshwater will not work.

IF you are using the correct salt, I would suggest doing heavy water changes (exchanging old saltwater for new saltwater made from you new system).

You need to be able to test the salinity of your water and maintain a full marine environment. You will replace evaporated water with fresh RO/DI water and do regular water changes with salt RO/DI water. You also need to check your PH to ensure the water is in a marine range (somewhere between 8.2 and 8.4).

 

[ekocak]

Not to pile on, but how long have you had your tank running for? Ceph tanks need a lot more lead time than the usual 3 to 6 weeks of cycling.

 

[coral dweller]

To answer watley's question, I left it out to evaporate the chorline. and for eko I've had it running for around 4 weeks.

 

[coral dweller]

Oh, and I use marine salt.

 

[coral dweller]

anyway, my main question is, would the octo die?

 

[DWhatley]

I am not sure how to address the question. The environment is not ready or stable (4 weeks will not have fully cycled the tank for the bio load of even a small octopus and is the biggest problem). If you can put off acquisition for another 2 months and actively cycle the tank (adding an ammonia source - typically done by slightly over feeding a small clean up crew), this would be my advice.

Did you start your cycle with live rock? If you used dead rock then the chances of survival for more than a week are pretty slim. The best I can suggest if you cannot put a hold on your order is to change out a gallon of saltwater every day and monitor daily for any ammonia (changing out more if any registers) but I fear this is going to be a sad experience.

 

[ekocak]

Couple of things to add: Even with my freshwater stuff (you mentioned toads, I'm also a keeper of amphibians! I keep axolotls) leaving water out doesn't necessarily solve some issues. Chlorine evaporates pretty readily, but chloramine, which is a very common additive in municipal water does not and would need to be chemically neutralized. All that is somewhat moot though since you absolutely should not be using tap water as we mentioned above.
I've just come through the other side of a cycling, so if you want some idea of what that looks like, check out my thread for starting up a cuttle tank. (The process of cycling for a ceph tank is basically the identical whether its an octo or a cuttle). I started building my tank last December, and began my cycling in May. It took about 3 months to become fully matured, and that was with 2 lbs of live rock per gallon of water.
I want to preface my next question with saying that this is not at all meant to sound insulting. Have you ever kept marine aquaria before? Cephs are not easy compared to other types of saltwater animals, and if this is your first experience you may want to try mastering something a little bit more forgiving first. I started out with a pair of clownfish and a small fish only with live rock setup, then moved on to invertebrates and such. That said, if you're dead set on it, or can't find a way to put a hold on your order, you're going to need to have a test kit and a lot of water changes. If you know someone with an already established tank, you might try asking them for any materials from their system they can spare: water, filter media, sand, rocks....anything that would have the nitrogen-fixing bacteria you want, to help with speeding along the process, although, I'll warn you that even this has its limits. There aren't any real shortcuts to tank maturation, other than just waiting for all the little critters to establish themselves, but you can certainly try encouraging them along.

 

[coral dweller]

Thanks for your help. I am a new comer to marine life. However, I have been advised by a local expert and my dad is a scientist who says it is worth a try. I will try to hit the ground running and not fall on my face.

 

[ekocak]

Alright then! As @DWhatley asked, what's your live rock situation? You're going to need between 1.5 to 2 lbs per gallon of water. You can use dead rock for decorative purposes (and it will eventually take on the properties of live rock), but is excruciatingly slow. As in, way slower than the process we're trying to speed up here normally takes. In marine aquaria, live rock acts as your main filtration (hence why it's so important to have enough for an ammonia factory like even a small octo), and gets supplemented by a protein skimmer. The main focus is on biological (bacterial) filtration in most modern saltwater setups, unlike freshwater where the focus tends to be more on chemical and mechanical.
All that said, there's no way to know where you are in the cycle process without a test kit. For starters, you want a kit that has pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and you'll also want a device of some kind for reading specific gravity (salinity). A new tank will often swing violently chemically, which means bad stuff for whats in there. Once your initial cycle starts, you should see ammonia spike first, then as the bacteria reach high enough levels to eat it, Nitrite will start to shoot up as Ammonia comes down. A few more weeks and then the same thing will happen to the Nitrite. Bacteria will process it all and Nitrate will shoot up. Nitrate we remove just by doing water changes. The other issue is that while this process may only take 3 to 6 weeks (and in my recent tank it took 2 because of all the extra liverock) the bacteria are only at the bare minimum enough levels to do their thing. This is why everyone on here waits the extra two months, to let those levels increase to the point the tank can handle an octopus.

 

[coral dweller]

I have a HUGE rock with three big caves; and the test kit and RO system are great ideas. I'll keep in touch with the TONMO community in case I need help ( which, I probably will ). I hope this octo doesent cost TOO much.

 

[ekocak]

Is it live rock?

 

[coral dweller]

Yep.

 

[ekocak]

So about how many pounds per gallon would you say you have? Did you buy cured or uncured rock?

 

[coral dweller]

I'm so proud of that rock, its a very nice rock.

 

[coral dweller]

Ummm... I don't know about pounds per gallon or cured or uncured rock. I'll figure that out.