• 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.

novice

-Rosendorn-

Hatchling
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Jan 30, 2009
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Greetings!

My Name is Torsten Schneyer, I live near Frankfurt in Germany. Because of that my english could sound a little bit strange for you, so I am
apologising. :wink:. Since I was a child i am fascinated by octopuses, and now i have decided to go a big step beyond an keep one. I may be a
beginner in octopus care, but not in the wide field of reef keeping. If you like to, have a look on the linked tank picture below, its an actual
shot of my reef tank and should speak for itself. Your Forum is the best source for information in the www and I read it with great
enthusiasm. I would like report my efforts to keep my first octo step by step from the begin on, and invite you to advice and criticize me if i do
something wrong.

First of all there is the choice of the species and there is the first big problem. Here in Germany octos ar very very rare in the saltwater
shops. The only species, that is continuously imported, is...
...the blue ring.
Before you start bashing me now: I am a very responsible and experienced keeper of poison animals. I kept Snakes, scorpions and spiders for years, had
the official licenses for that and you may trust me: I am not one of this idiots who don't know what they are doing. Also I live alone and
don't have kids. :wink: So its going to be this wonderful small tropical species, I guess.

What did i do until now?

I ordered a cubic 26 us-gallon tank and build a strong column-table for it and all the electronics.
http://www.riffaquaristikforum.de/forum/galerie/mittlere-bilder/mittel-9690.jpg
I want to concept the Tank after the "berlin system". I am nut sure if you use this term, here in Germany does it stand for: live sand, many live rocks and a good skimmer and
sometimes coal. As a streaming pump I am going to use just a small Coralia like that one:
http://www.aquaristikshop.com/pictures_g/548000.jpg
The skimmer will be an aqua medic miniflotor:
http://www.ecotronics.de/images/aquamedicminiflotor.jpg
As lighting i have choosen a small Aqualight 2 x T5 8W (one white, one blue):
http://shop.aqualight.de/images/product_images/info_images/936_0.jpg

The top cover (right english word?) of the tank is a heavy selfmade construction from coated wood, that lays closely fitting and overlaping
on the glass border. Its 25 cm high and includes the skimmer pod, the light and a ventilator. All air holes and the ventilator are secured
with close wire. I am sure that there is no escape.

The tank is right now filled with new saltwater (used distilled water and my favorite reef salt) with the density of 0.1025.
Tomorrow I am going to buy the sand and the live rock and then the tank will mature till the water parameters are ok.
While maturing, I want to add some caulerpas, soft corals and snails to help the tank biology to evolve.

Is that all as appropriate? Did I forget something important? Don't hesitate to give me, please. :smile:

No I have some further questions!

1. Is my light to bright for an octo? I don't want to keep my tank to dark because i think, light is the engine of the reef biology and the live rock
will filter much better with enough light.

2. Is the skimmer adequate for the supply with oxygen or should I install a additional air pump?

3. In this article Cephalopod Care the density of 1.026 is recommended, or the octo will be killed.
Most reef tanks i know are runnung great with 1.024-1.025. I cant imagine that a tropical octopus should die because if that?!

That's all for the moment, thank you for your attention and for your help.

Yours, Torsten.


gesamtansicht-januar-09.jpg
 
Grüss Dich, Rosendorn, und willkommen. Kein Problem mit dem Englisch - Du äusserst Dich ganz gut. :wink:

I've moved this thread because we prefer to discuss blue ring and other dangerous/rare species here, where random passersby will not readily happen across the info.

As for your questions on keeping a blue ring, I'm going to let someone else tackle most of them, but I recommend looking around this forum in the meantime - there are a few other threads on blue rings and their dangers. Bear in mind that you will not be able to put your hand into the tank for any maintenance procedures if you do opt for this species.

:welcome:
 
blue spots are a dwarf species... at least they are the smaller size, I don't know if they are "dwarfs" but they are that size.

I think the lighting's fine... you probably want to go with a powerhead that's different then a koralia as those are hard to octo proof. something with a "pipe like" opening. you also may want a better skimmer... also, you say there is a small gap between the glass and lid. You have to have NO gap or less than 1-2ish cm. Octo's WILL get through ANY gap. and you definetly don't want to risk it with a blue ring.

oh yeah, and :welcome:
 
I've had the monster 1200 gph Koralia in Kalypso's tank for over 6 months now. He climbs on it, over it, sticks his arms in it, and has never had any injuries from it or difficulty removing himself from it. Grover lived in a tank with several of the lower gph Koralia models. Same scenario, no injuries. No struggle to get free.

I'm sold on the idea that Koralia's are very safe and don't actually need any octo-proofing. Unlike the traditional powerheads, the intake of the Koralia is distributed around the entire casing, so if one area is covered, the intake increases everywhere else without creating a vacuum, whereas the traditional style with the singular intake just sucks harder when partially covered.

The only exception would be a weak/unhealthy animal.
 
Greetings to all and hallo Tintenfisch, bin wohl nicht der einzige Teutone hier drin? Umso besser!

Thank you for the welcome,the feedback and the input, I will try to seperate the different topics.

1. Otko- and Tanksize: I think too, that Bluerings are that what you call "dwarfs": a very small kind of octopus. I never saw one wich had a bigger arm-radius then 18 cm. Is my tank really to small for such a animal? Its hard to imagine that...
Many of the okto-tanks I saw in this Forum are similar, relativy seen to ther inhabitants.

2.
also, you say there is a small gap between the glass and lid.
Hum...? Where did i write that? :smile: As i wrote "that lays closely fitting and overlaping" I meant, that there is no gab of course. Sorry, my english is not good enough for precise descriptions. :smile:

3. The pump-discussion confuses me. Who is right of you now? Or better: Where can i find orgininal (!) reports from people who lost an okto because of the pump? The search function of the forum does not deliver me any.

4. You write, the miniflot is not large anough für a blue ring... my calculation is the following: llets say this small okto consumes tree little or four little (!) crustaceans per week. The amount of waste should not be so big or am i wrong? In my big reeftanl i only have a midi-flotor and i feed tree times a day! Concern, that i have 15 kg of live rock in the okto tank.

5. No idea to my densety-question?

Thank you very!
 
I have a collective experience of about 10 months of keeping octos with un-altered Koralia's and no injuries. I exchanged my Maxi-Jet pumps for the Koralia's after reading that someones nudibranch climbed all over their Koralia without being sucked in or getting stuck. So, take that as you will. It's all anecdotal information. I consider my experience to be "proof" to myself.

I don't think you'll find a thread on anyone's octopus being harmed by a pump. I can't remember any posts in the past several years I've been reading these forums about someones octopus being harmed. This is probably due to following good advice or perhaps embarrassment if it did happen.

Blue Rings could be considered dwarfs in relation to a lot of other octos but they are considerably larger than the dwarf species we commonly keep here in the states. The 26 gallon might be pushing it, but I wouldn't say it's impossible or anything as long as you are adamant about maintenance. Buy some long gloves.

I have no experience with that brand/model of skimmer so I can't say. As long as you do regular water changes and watch your water chemistry you will probably be fine feeding scarcely. Judging by the picture I would say it looks like you have a good idea of how to maintain a nice tank.
 
I agree with AM on the Koralia's. OhToo (hummelincki) has been the only octo to "stick his fingers (arm tip :biggrin2:) into them (which he did constantly when he first arrived) and I did place rock around them in his first tank because of it. He did have a small infection on his arm but I don't think it was the pump as that would have removed the arm tip and there was not even an apparent cut when the infection cleared. In his current tank, they are not covered with live rock and he has not put the tips in these at all.

Octane (also hummelincki) never even investigated them. I have not put one into a dwarf tank.
 

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