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Octopus feeding ?

J

johnism

Blue Ring
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Mar 5, 2004
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I was curious about this - how often do you feed your Octopus ( Daily -limited ) or free rain ( meaning dump all live creatures in for them to decide when it is time to eat)?
Also I see you mention frozen scallops as a substitute , what about shrimp or fish?
I live in the Central America so salt feeders might be very harder to come buy.
any ideas what else I could feed ( gold fish , crayfish and so on )?
I have seen where I can bulk clams form suppliers at a( reasonably price )but I saw the post mentions crabs ( are these hermits and fiddlers ), and can a person order( bulk ) fiddlers or hermits at a reasonable price -where?
Glad to see you covered the part about introducing your hand , was very curious about that ( so start early - is the best bet with this- can you hand feed them then - with say a gold fish )?
Again I am just trying to gain as much knowledge as possible , before acquiring one.
Thanks,
John
 
Hi John, Crayfish are accepted by most octo's although I've never tried them. My baby bimac eats live ghost shrimp, baby clams, small hermit crabs, astrea snails, and frozen raw shrimp. He's basically a little pig and eats about anything I'm putting in the tank lately. :lol: I'd be real careful feeding him any type of freshwater fish. You never know if they've been exposed to copper, which is deadly to octo's.

Spring
 
Most octopuses like crabs and shrimp. They need some live food - I used shore shrimp and fiddler crabs, and both of these can be mail ordered here in the US.

If you can get good quality fresh scallops, they would be good. Most octopuses learn to accept thawed frozen raw shrimp (never cooked) and even frozen fish, although not all like the fish.

They like crawfish, but these are freshwater, so could not be the only food. You also have to be careful of the claws and not overwhelm your octo with too big a crawfish.

Nancy
 
can you find fiddlers crabs for mail order in bulk at a reasonable priced?
Let say I order 50 - should I let the octopus have free rain of the crabs or feed them 3 times a week?
Thanks again
 
The site is very much alive, and offers even more than it did some years ago . That link sent you to a page that was no longer there. They offer fiddler crabs, shrimp, amphipods, etc, They use the name Sach's as well as the Aquaculture store. Check them out at www.aquaculturestore.com. Nancy
 
Nancy said:
I and some others on this website have ordered from
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I put a few in at a time a supplementary feeding. An order lasted a couple of weeks.

Nancy
Click to expand...
Ok Ty, got it now, I am going to make an order asap, do you add the shrimp in or just add a few? I'm going to be adding the fiddlers as needed as they can be kept in a small tank I have. If I don't add them in all at once what's the best way to hold them? Ty
 
Also I was wondering if there were any store bought foods that work? Also If I get a can of jumbo lump crab for me and had a little extra would my octo eat it? Any ideas like throwing the dog a piece of steak but still. I always end up w/ a little I'm not going to use right away.
 
The guy at the shop said when he has them he feeds them rods predictor mix. Since he hasn't been able to get the $1/ea crayfish in. A couple things though, I looked up the food and it has a lot of good stuff in it, it also has octopus in it, I know they will kill each-other if you put them together but I still am against feeding another octo to mine for many reasons... My guy does love a lot of different snails too, I added a few huge Mexican turbos and he's been chowing down on them. As well as hermits and other snails. I tried fish w/o luck. I'm going to try and get some scallops/shrimp today and see what happens. Until I can get those fiddlers etc
 

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