RIP

[KDS]

Hello again. My new baby octopus is dead. I have no idea why. My water looks perfect. No ammonia, ph-8.3, sal.-1.026, temp-70deg. This evening he was out and messing around at the top of the tank. I thought he was acting strange, but since I have never really had an octo, I thought it was normal. Anyway about an hour later he was dead. I got him on Thursday and since then I put three hermits in there. I searched the tank and there are two left. He also ate one peice of thawed shrimp. I cant think of anything I did wrong, other than when I thawed the shrimp out I ran it under hot water. Surely that wouldn't have killed him. Can anyone tell me what on earth I did wrong.
KDS

 

[muskox]

I am very sorry to hear that.
RIP

Is your house's pipes made with copper?
That is the only thing that I can think of.

 

[dreadhead]

sorry to hear.

 

[dreadhead]

Maybe the shrimp absorbed some of the chems from the tap water?Just a thought,have you tested your tap water?

 

[Jean]

Hi KDS

sorry to hear that

other than chemicals in the tapwater (which would be a STRONG possibility round here, we thaw food either in running seawater [plastic pipes] or sealed in a plastic bag so the FW doesn't touch the food). It could've been shipping stress or just one of those things, scant consolation I know. In the wild, the bulk of ceph babies don't make it so there may just have been some inherent weakness in the baby and it had nothing to do with you.

J

 

[monty]

sorry to hear it being at the surface looking like it's trying to climb out of the tank is often a sign of water problems of some sort, but it's hard to say what.

 

[corw314]

Rip little octopus. Does sound like there could have been a water issue as I've had octopuses trying to climb out of my tanks because of an ammonia spike. So sorry to hear.

 

[KDS]

I tested my tank water. There was no ammonia. And he was not trying to climb out of the water; he was just crawling around on the glass. Every once in a while he would start jetting around. I don't know if we have copper pipes; our house is new so I don't think so. Even if the shrimp did absorb some of the chemicals in the tap water, do you think when I put it in my tank, the saltwater sort of diluted it (he never ate it right away; I had to wait at least ten minutes). Just a thought??

 

[Jean]

Copper in the tiniest trace amount is fatal so if you have copper pipes the water will contain trace amounts of copper. Even if it washes off the food and is in the water your octopus would still be bathed in it and absorbing it through the skin.

J

 

[DWhatley]

I have wondered about copper poisoning from hot water since most hot water heaters use copper heating elements. I am not sure there is a coorelation but I freeze my hands when I wash the ceph stuff to avoid any possible problem. If your little guy ate a shrimp that was exposed, ingestion would be more impactive than tank water.

 

[Jean]

We've put filters in the FW taps at Portobello, It used to be so bad that if you left a glass of FW to sit there would be a greenish/blue precipitate on the bottom of the glass within an hour or so

J

 

[SandV]

omg... did anyone drink the water? did it have the taste of metal?

 

[Jean]

omg... did anyone drink the water? did it have the taste of metal?

Oh yes....tasted foul. I took to bringing water from home.

J