• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

Mimic octopuses

simple

Vampyroteuthis
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Oct 10, 2007
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There is a mimic octopus available at reefscavengers.com for 399.99 Seems like to much for something that might live for only a couple of months more but i heard talk of a breeding program for these so thought someone might be interested.
 
Mimic octopuses

I was reading some other threads on mimic octopuses and after reading a suggestion of starting a breeding program for these octopuses, so they wont be collected from the wild, i felt that it would be very beneficial and help protect these beautiful octopuses. I don't feel i am experienced enough to do this but hopefully someone else out there can so here are some places that i have seen that sell these. You may add to the list if you find any more sources.
-http://www.nyaquatic.com/servlet/the-478/Zebra-Octopus/Detail
-Reefscavengers.com
Both have these in stock.
I do not encourage anyone buying these for the sole purpose as keeping them as pets, since not much is known about them and their population in the wild.
 
I moved this thread to "Exotics" because we try to keep discussions of animals that may be harmed by interest among hobby fishkeepers in this slightly-restricted space.

I should probably give fair warning that this is something of a can of worms: it's not known, but suspected, that there's a risk that these attractive but hard to keep and not terribly personable animals could be overcollected in the wild. Many people are concerned that having expensive tank-bred animals for sale (which would lead collectors to try to undercut the price), or having suppliers believe that they can make $400 per animal and pass that on to the collectors to encourage them, could end up making the situation worse.

Also, to my knowledge, no one (hobby or professional) has raised wunderpus or mimics from eggs in captivity.

I think I'll also move the post in octopus availability to this thread. One reason we move things to exotics is that the exotics forum is not visible to people who aren't registered or logged in, and so isn't indexed on google.

edit: I don't mean for this to have a chilling effect on discussing the idea, I just wanted to move the post and reiterate some of the concerns I've seen. I'm not horribly opposed to breeding exotic cephs to reduce collection pressures, but frankly, I do think it would be preferable to put effort into organizing captive breeding of the species that are known to have large populations and make good pets, like bimacs and briareus, and perhaps bandensis, although it's less clear that we know their status in the wild.

edit2: see this article for further discussion Mimic Octopuses: Will we love them to death? - The Cephalopod Page
 
I completely agree with you monty, i just felt that maybe people would be willing to pay 300 or so dollars for an animal they know is healthy and has at least 8 or so months to live instead of buying a wild caught one that might only live for weeks, and thus it might discourage collectors to catch them since it would not be worth the trouble for them. Thank you for moving it to exotics, to further discourage unexperienced people from buying these.
 
I would be shocked to find that it was actually a mimic - it was discussed here:

Mimic or Wunderpus?

More importantly, these are a small egged species and currently the possibility of raising the kids is virtually nil. These being one of the, sadly, more available exotics, I would be all over them for breeding if I thought there was a real possibility of pulling it off.

I wish there was a way to curtail their collection, but given that much of this hobby is actually supply driven, I am not sure how to do that.

I think the breeding program you were hearing about is possibly for O. chierchiae, a smaller zebra octopus from a different part of the world. The excitement about that was because it looked to be possible to obtain several specimens instead of the usual single animal. I'll post more about that as info becomes available, but it does seem that they are nocturnal and may not make very good pets anyway.
 
$400 is just crazy money for an animal that is going to live a few days to a few weeks at most and I dont understand how the mark-up system works for their price as they are so inexpensive to buy directly, they can be seen on importer's lists for only a few dollars???
 
As Thales noted, until we have the ability to breed the small egged species, keeping them for "captive breeding" is not a good reason.
I think that people are willing to pay the high dollar amount as a bragging right, as a crank item for their ego's.
It is indeed a beautiful species. They sure look good in the ocean !
 
cthulhu77;115396 said:
As Thales noted, until we have the ability to breed the small egged species, keeping them for "captive breeding" is not a good reason.
I think that people are willing to pay the high dollar amount as a bragging right, as a crank item for their ego's.
It is indeed a beautiful species. They sure look good in the ocean !

What he said.
 
fishkid6692;115399 said:
just a question.... what size tank is suggested for this species? i know there is not much known about them but what is a rough estimate.

About the same size as Indonesia :old:

Better off not in a tank at all
 
yeah, they probably wont ever do their mimicing; its like bluerings- the only way you "get to see the pretty colors" are by agitating something that could kill you with a nibble
 
Exactly, no mimicry has been seen in captivity - if indeed they really mimic anything at all in the wild too? (thats another story LOL)
 
well, ive seen some pitures of a side-by-side comparative between a mimc doing some pose, and a lionfish, a seasnake, and a flounder. they were pretty convincing to me
 

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