Octopus self-feeding

[FlyingFish]

Hi everyone - new to the forum! I had an octopus when I was a kid, about 35 years ago. I bought him fully grown and had him a little over 2 years. At that time, the aquarium industry was no where near as advanced as it is now. I even used regular tap water to make my saltwater! More recently I got back into the hobby and I've had a successful mixed reef for about a year and a half. I want to have another cephalopod for my other aquarium, but my only hesitation is, if I go on vacation, how would I feed it? When I was younger, my octopus would pick off damsels or other small saltwater fish that (briefly) lived in my aquarium with him. The fish would never last beyond about a week before they were all gone, and he would hunt them as he got hungry. Just wondering, has anyone else had experience similar to this, letting their octopus self-feed and hunt at will? Can I throw a few feeder crabs and saltwater feeder fish in with him before I leave and let him hunt on his own while I'm away? Thanks for any advice anyone might have with this scenario.

 

[Deleted member 14033]

Hello and welcome.
My advice would be to get someone you know who is reliable that can keep up with feeding and any other maintenance while you are away. Ideally you would want the animal to be fed daily but every other day probably would not hurt.
In situations like this it is going to be beneficial to have someone you know trained to some degree so that you could go on vacation and actually enjoy it.
Feeding, evap top off, and ph testing would be a good place to start. If your tank has a lid then don't worry to much about evap.