New Octopus Not eating

[wpatrick]

I just bought a new Octopus Last week at the LFS and he or she has not ate anything yet about 4 days.
Any Ideas.
He come out and walks around often (alot more than most of my other octs have done in the first week)

I have 2 shrimp and 2 damsels in the tanks with him. 40Gallon tank.

 

[christian39]

try fiddler crabs and it might be stress

 

[wpatrick]

I have ordered fiddler crabs and they will not be in until wednesday and that will be one week with out food.

 

[christian39]

dose your LFs have any?

 

[wpatrick]

no they are out i am going to drive all over town to try to find one. I would have though he would have eaten the shrimp though

 

[Animal Mother]

Any idea what kind of octopus? How large?

Refusing to eat and more than normal activity are usually signs of senescense in male octopuses. Sometimes poor water quality will decrease their appetite but they will seem to act restless, usually because they're trying to escape and find a more comfortable place. Just some things to consider, not saying this is the case with yours.

 

[RS29]

hi new to tonmo. well i guess everybody here is an octopus lover. i cant find this post new thread button...but i wanted to share something with everyone on the forum. i found this to be totally disgusting!

nationalgeographic.com then navigate to videos (on the left), then to specials (on the right), then to taboo videos...n if ur really up for it...theres a 4 minute plus video..of people eating life octopi in korea!

i thought it was sad...n terrible!

okay have a good day..sorry didnt know how to post this n where!

cheerios

 

[monty]

to TONMO. The live octos as food thing has been discussed before, in fact recently someone's been talking about rescuing one to see if it makes a good pet. It's probably preferable to talk about this topic over in this thread:

http://www.tonmo.com/community/index.php?threads/9339/

so we can keep this one focused on what's going on with wpatrick's octo.

 

[monty]

You don't mention the water parameters, sometimes octos get more active and try to escape if there's a water quality problem... doing a water change certainly wouldn't hurt.

We've often seen damsels harass octos and stress them out, so it's probably not so great to have them in the tank, but usually this results in the octo hiding rather than being out and walking around, so it seems unlikely to be related to the octos behavior. AM is certainly right that it seems like it could just be old age.

 

[wpatrick]

Water quality is perfect, the tanks has housed octopus and cuttles before. My cuttle died 2 months ago. This is a wonderpus the LFS had him and i did not want him to find a home where there was no Cephalopod experience. His mantle is the size of a quarter (little smaller) and the largest legs reach about 6in but he can stretch them much futher. He has 2 legs half missing and 3 little legs. I have had octopuses since I was a little boy and have never had one not eat within 5 days. I have looked on the internet to see how large wonderpus's get but very little luck to guess age. I belive that he is headed for oct heaven.

Copper test were negative

 

[dreadhead]

My first octo didn't eat anything I offerd for the first week. If its mantle is only quarter size he may be eating some of the pod's from your tank.