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octopus loosing tentacle

Joined
Mar 16, 2020
Messages
9
Location
ellesmere port
Can anyone give me some advice .Arthur my dwarf octopus is loosing his tentacles .He is feed crabs but they are declawed so no damage from that i think .The only other thing in the tank is a serpent starfish which stays away from him
thanks sean
 
Hi Sean,

What are your water chemistry parameters like? How often does your octo eat? Do you have any photos of your octopus? How long have you had them?

Some of these answers might help us narrow down exactly whats going on and if there are things you can do to help your animal.
 
water is fine tested every week .He eats a crab a day .We have had him about 3 months .It seems to have started when i put a crab in but forgot to declaw it and he inked in the tank but the crab had taken a bit of one of his tenticles but now seeming to loose most of them .I done know whether thats a coincidence .Hes not shy and looks really well
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It could be that the stress from the crab pinch was what caused him to lose the initial arm, but the rest of the arm loss seems unrelated.

Was this animal collected from the wild? If you have already had them for 3 months, it could be that they are reaching the end of their natural life and this is the beginning of their senescence.

We have another user experiencing senescence right now too. Feel free to read about it here. You may be seeing similar behaviors exhibited by your animal as well.
 
it was bought through our local marine shop who had it a month before i bought him . He doesn't seem stressed as he comes out and sits there on is shell .We had thought he might be coming towards the end of his life .Such a shame these have such a limited life as he has brought lots of joy to me and the wife .Thank you for your help we will just wait and see
 
hi there
thank you for your help but there is another thing i have found out .I feed him crabs which i keep in a separate tank .I decided to do a water test on this tank and the nitrites were massive could this have anything to do with it as i usually take 1 straight out of there tank and feed it to the octopus could this be causing any thing wrong with him
thanks sean
 
Hi Sean- glad you made it from Facebook to our awesome site! It’s sad when your octopus begins senescence, but you should still have a few weeks if that’s what is going on. If the arm damage was from the serpent star, it might take a while to see some regeneration.
 
Generally speaking, elevated nitrates are not a problem and expected in an octopus tank. Like any excess, however, there is a limit to how high they can be before there is a negative impact. Sadly, we don't have a definitive answer to that number.
 
Going along with the point DWhatley made, I usually do water changes for anything above 20-30ppm for Nitrates. Anything much higher than that and you are likely stressing out your animal.

There is something to be said however about maintaining a balance of good water chemistry, and not doing water changes too often or swinging the water quality parameters too quickly. Depending on your specific situation and the actual measure of Nitrates in your tank I can give more specific advice.
 

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