• 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.

new to octi

Depends.. I have seen some octos for like $25 - $30 but they were large so I passed on them. Then I found this baby bimac at another LFS for $80... I bought him. If you can find a really small one I would buy it over the cheaper, larger, octopus.
 
yeah i want to get a baby so i can have it longer.

would the baby octo eat ghost shrimp? (the small clear freshwater shrimp)

and will larger ones eat freshwater clams?

and just to make sure, i can use cut up fish and shrimp thats already dead?

the shrimp and clams could e like a weekly treat or something maby.
 
Im going to go out on a limb here and suggest two things...
1.) you wait and save up alot of money for your octopus [and i mean alot of money]
OR
2.) you dont get an octo

Here is the reason:
1.) freshwater ghost shrimp/clams are NOT a suitable diet... they are most readily available and cheap though. The octo probably wont live a normal/healthy/long life if you are feeding him on freshwater animals
2.) Not all octo's eat cut up fish and shrimp [frozen fish/shrimp that you defrost]. So, lets just say your octo refuses to even look at ANYTHING dead, then you are stuck with feeding freshwater animals because thats what is available to you. So now you will have to order SW/Brackish water crabs/shrimp which [after shipping] will get VERY expensive.
3.)An alternative would be to go collecting yourself for crabs and shrimp at a local beach but that will, obviously, only work if you are near some sort of beach. You also risk the possibility of the crabs/shrimp coming from a dirty environment thus poisoning your octo.
Just some things to think about...
 
You might get lucky and have an octopus that accepts thawed raw shrimp and silversides, but don't count on that. Go to www.aquaculturestore.com and look at the available saltwater feeder shrimp and fiddler crabs. Calculate the cost of purchasing them over the course of a year or maybe a year and a half. This is what it's going to cost to feed an octopus, unless, as stated, you get lucky and find one that eats thawed dead foods.
 
tad harsh fish freak

if it doesn't except thawed then i'll get live, not that big of a deal. and on the guide on this very website it said that babies like ghost shrimp.

it also said they eat clams as well.

thats why i asked. and tons of places online said they feed theres freshwater clams. and there octos are healthy.
 
sindas;101250 said:
tad harsh fish freak

if it doesn't except thawed then i'll get live, not that big of a deal. and on the guide on this very website it said that babies like ghost shrimp.

it also said they eat clams as well.

thats why i asked. and tons of places online said they feed theres freshwater clams. and there octos are healthy.

I don't think FishFreak meant to be harsh, but he is right-- we definitely don't recommend a diet of mostly freshwater animals. Jean (who raises cephs professionally) is particularly vocal about pointing out that freshwater animals don't have the proper balance of nutrients for cephalopods, although they're happy to eat them, so it's OK to give them as a treat, but if they're the bulk of the animal's diet, it's likely to be malnourished.

There are also salt water ghost shrimp, which may be what was meant, although there have been octos who survived on freshwater animals; it's not "instant death," it just seems from reports of octos over years that those fed saltwater food are overall healthier. However, if you remember which guide mentions ghost shrimp, we may want to clarify that.

A lot of the recommendations here are "best practices" that are conclusions from people with a lot of experience in octo keeping. I tend to think that the collected wisdom here is usually better than the largely anecdotal octo keeping reports on other sites, not just because I like it here, but because we often see links to "some guy says he kept an octo and..." or "the LFS that sold me the octo said..." but when people try to repeat these experiments, they often come back and say "my octo is dying/dead, what's wrong?"

edit: It looks like the bimac care sheet says "Young octos may be given ghost shrimp, which are easier for them to catch than shore shrimp but are not suitable for long-term use."

I think that's about accurate, in that if you're trying to get the octo to eat something, or ghost shrimp are all you have, it doesn't hurt them to eat ghost shrimp, they just won't be healthy if that's the main staple of their diets... that's why they're "not suitable for long-term use."
 
Please wait the three months that is recommended on this site. It gives the tank a chance to stabilize. Also, if you wait three months, the bacteria needed to break down waste will multiply in your system.

As for the food supply, every octopus is an individual, so you should have a variety of food (both frozen and live) on hand before you purchase your octopus. That way you can figure out what your octopus likes the best and then purchase the food as needed. Aquaculturestore.com is a reliable source for live food. Octopus will be healthier eating food from the ocean, rather than freshwater food.
 
i was wondering, i know rock crabs are popular when it comes to octo food, is there any websites i can buy these from? i can't find any.
 
There are not a lot of choices for online octo food (fortunately the few that there are are good) but you might scan through some of the eBay auctions and look for small pet shops or individual divers and email them with a specific request. It is not likely to be a regular food supply but might be a good way to offer a change of diet.
 

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