Octo Gym

[Dools]

I too have recently acquired (10 days ago) a baby bimac from Jack at fishsupply.com. I had my reservations, but after reading about Sam, Roxie and Tralfaz; I decided to give it a try. The octo Jack sent me was in excellent condition (he had eight full tentacles), which is better than the ones I had bought in the past at my LFS. He even ate a freeze-dried shrimp not soon after I put him in the tank.

Vader lives in a 75-gal tank with 30 lbs of live rock. He co-inhabitants include a pencil urchin, choc-chip starfish, some type of nocturnal starfish (not sure of the species), two conchs, and two large turbo snails. I also had a emerald crab that was meant as enticement for an octo that would not eat (I eventually took it back to my LFS), but Vader ate him the next day.

He quickly acclimated himself to the "daylight" schedule I have my tank lights on, so I see him all the time. He has been quite active and an aggressive eater. He eats fresh prawn chunks or freeze-dried shrimp right off the feeding stick. He also has eaten several hermit crabs, as well as ghost shrimp. So far I have fed him something each day, but I am curious about the comments I read regarding this decreasing their lifespan.

The other question I have is in regards to "toys" for an octo. Currently, I have several pieces of PVC pipe that he can crawl into, but was wondering about creating a small "octo gym" out of plastic tubing that is normally used for hamsters, etc. Is this safe to put into the water and have any of you ever used it? I thought it would be fascinating to watch him go through it, since you can see througth the tubing.

Finally, I don't have a digital camera, but he seems to be about the same size as the pics I've seen of Sam and Tralfaz; so I'm guessing Vader is also from the same "litter". I'll keep you posted on his progress.

 

[tonmo]

Cool! Is it Vader, as in Darth?

If you get the chance, be sure to add your tank to the TONMO.com OCTO database. I soon hope to provide links to member tanks from the member profile pages.

Thanks, and good luck!

 

[corw314]

Congrats on your new octo! That means there's 5 siblings??? I like the idea of the hamster tubings! I don't see why they couldn't be used as they are safe for hamsters to chew on. Will wait to see what the experts say!!!!

Carol

 

[lawfish]

Dools:

Congrats on the new Bimac. I'm glad to hear that Vader is doing well in his new home. It's funny that you should mention hamster tubes. I was thinking of doing something similar with acrylic tube or PVC. I want to make a maze of sorts that Tralfaz can negotiate for food.

Keep us updated as to Vader's progress

George

 

[Pacific Blue]

When I had the octopus in the lab I made a fairly large maze out of clear acrylic about the size of a coffe table. I had an input and an out put for water and a stageing are that the octo would start off at. I wish I had some pictures or video I could share but they all stayed with my reports. It was realy neat to see the octo smell the crab and try to find its way through the maze. After 3 or 4 times through it got to know the route quite well and it was no longer a chalange but still quite fun to watch. I had some places where the octo would make a short cut by passing through gaps between the plastic wall and the lid but that was very cool looking anyways. If you would like a drawing, I have that let me know and I will e-mail it to you.

Pacific Blue