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Oto not eating

Rosco

Cuttlefish
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Joined
Sep 6, 2022
Messages
18
Location
Raleigh
Hello everyone and thank you in advance for any help that you can give.
I have a new octopus, (species unknown, maybe you can help with that as well) in a 50 gallon “Red Sea” tank. She/he isn’t eating. It has been four or five days now. The parameters on the tank are in a pic below. I’ve also included a picture of her.

What are you guys feeding your new octopus to try and get them acclimated and comfortable in their new environment? I have tried emerald crabs, hermit crabs, now ghost shrimp this morning. She did grab two of the ghost shrimp from my tongs and I think she ate one of them but I’m not sure.
 

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Hi Rosco, coloration does not look good! They usually eat crabs readily. You could try small pieces of thawed shrimp. Does he have suitable places to hide? Problem is without knowing species it’s hard to tell age? Thanks
 
Here she is moving around and changing colors if that helps. Sometimes she’s trying to make herself clear to blend in with the glass but when she’s by that purple rock she turns a dark brown with whitish color spots. She has places to hide but she chooses to hang out at the top of the tank in the left corner. I tried frozen shrimp thawed out but when I put them near her with the tongs she gently pushed it away as if to say “no thank you”.
Update since yesterday, I tried live ghost shrimp this morning and as soon as I put it near her with the tongs she wrapped around it quickly. Couldn’t tell what she did with it but I’m pretty sure she ate it. A minute and a half later there was a shrimp shell floating around. I gave her another and she took it as well. That is in one of the pictures above. You can see her holding onto the shrimp. Thanks again
 

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Glad she's eating - a few days without eating is usually OK from what I've read here. To Tom's point, places to hide / a dynamic environment is important for her comfort and stress levels!
 
Just keep in mind ghost shrimp are not nutritious! Double check your water. What temp you keeping it at?
Is that an octopus specific thing that they’re not nutritious? (I’m sorry if this comes across as combative - I don’t mean it that way - I’m just genuinely curious here, as I don’t know much about octopuses yet, but I know ghost shrimp have been used as a standalone feed to culture multiple generations of the common cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis - so I feel like they have to be at least decently nutritious.)
 
Just keep in mind ghost shrimp are not nutritious! Double check your water. What temp you keeping it at?
There are plenty of hermit crabs crawling around in the tank with her. I’ve had Emeril crabs in the tank but she hasn’t eaten any of those. I took the emerald crabs out because she would always go to the other side of the tank from the crabs so I thought maybe she was scared of them. I have a big rock in there with multiple tunnels and holes in it for her to hide in. She chooses to stay at the top left corner of the tank on the glass. The water temp was 72° but people at the fish store said she needed something more along the lines of 75 to 78° . Yesterday I increased the temperature to 74°.

I will take your advice and add more live rock and other things for her to hide in.
 
Is that an octopus specific thing that they’re not nutritious? (I’m sorry if this comes across as combative - I don’t mean it that way - I’m just genuinely curious here, as I don’t know much about octopuses yet, but I know ghost shrimp have been used as a standalone feed to culture multiple generations of the common cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis - so I feel like they have to be at least decently nutritious.)
First I've heard as well; shrimp has been a staple food for octos in this forum for a long while, I was even selling shrimp to our members (through an intermediary) for a time!

It may depend on the shrimp type (e.g. mysis, etc). Here's a thread from Reef2Reef on that:

And here's a TONMO thread on feeding octos vs. cuttles:
 

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