shark egg with octo?

[fishkid6692]

i'm guessing you can't but i wasn't sure and i was wondering if i can keep a shark egg with a baby octo?

 

[shipposhack]

The egg won't do anything and the baby shark probably won't either; I wouldn't do it though. It could cause stress to one of the animals. Octos are best as the only species in the tank.

 

[Animal Mother]

If you want tankmates find some cool seastars. I would avoid any large carnivorous stars though. Linkias, serpents, and brittle stars (except green brittles) are fun to watch and sometimes really colorful. You want to avoid anything that's going to be potentially aggressive or potentially octopus food. Believe me, if it's an O. hummelincki like swf.com usually gets, the octopus alone will be all the excitement one tank can handle.

 

[fishkid6692]

i wasn't planning to keep the shark in with the octopus when it hatched but will the octo eat it?

thanks for all the help everyone!

 

[monty]

I have no idea, but I wouldn't put anything in a tank with an octopus that I didn't want it to eat. If you just want to keep it safe, maybe in a sump would be better if you have one. I'd certainly think if it hatched the octo would be pretty likely to eat it, I have no idea before it hatched. You could try keeping the egg in a critter keeper or similar, but octos are famous for being able to open things and crawl through small holes...

I don't expect that you'll get a specific answer, but "better safe than sorry" is usually a good rule unless you have some compelling reason to want to have the egg with the octopus. Of course, if you decide to bet your shark egg on the unknown odds of the experiment, let us know how it turns out... but even then "it worked once" is not really reliable even if it does... sometimes octos can share space with fish, but often they can't so we've occasionally had people say "I've kept octos with fish with no problems" but overall, more often than not it leads to some sort of problem, so we usually say that octos are best in a species tank with only very innocuous tankmates, for the good of the octo and the tankmates, since frequently one or the other will either become lunch, or will be so stressed that it will not be healthy.

 

[fishkid6692]

the egg wont hatch for another 4-5 months but your right i rather be safe than sorry so i'll just keep it in my other tank. i've seen people keep a large octo with 2 leopard sharks in a 180 gallon tank so i wasn't sure if i could do the same with a banded cat shark.

 

[monty]

I know of at least one case where a small shark killed a small octo, and the famous Seattle Aquarium video shows that at least sometimes a large octo can kill several medium-sized sharks... I would certainly discourage keeping any octo with any shark.

 

[fishkid6692]

at the moment my octo is going to stay with a starfish and a pagoda cup

 

[Jean]

i wasn't planning to keep the shark in with the octopus when it hatched but will the octo eat it?

thanks for all the help everyone!

Very likely,

We had a carpet shark hatch in the tank NEXT to the octopus, the octopus climbed over the tank wall and had shark for breakfast

J

 

[fishkid6692]

i am not talking about the shark when it hatches but can a shark egg stay with a baby octo or will the octo eat the egg itself?

 

[Jean]

i am not talking about the shark when it hatches but can a shark egg stay with a baby octo or will the octo eat the egg itself?

OK My mistake!

The egg should be OK in with the octo until it hatches, I haven't seen too many things attack the egg, mainly grazing snails and the occasional fungus (which can be avoided by gently swishing the egg case through the water!!!!)


J

 

[cuttlegirl]

i am not talking about the shark when it hatches but can a shark egg stay with a baby octo or will the octo eat the egg itself?

The egg itself is probably safe, but what if the shark hatches in the middle of the night when you are not watching?

 

[fishkid6692]

thanks

thanks for everyones help but the egg still has about 4-5 months until it hatches. and as for tank mates starfish are ok?

 

[shipposhack]

Yes stars are fine.

Jean- What species of octo was that?

 

[monty]

Yes stars are fine.

or at least we thought stars were fine until today:

new octo ( henry )

that's probably a rare incident, though, since a lot of people have kept stars with octos in the past... although hummelincki are not octos we've seen a lot until recently, so maybe they find starfish more tasty than other octos... ?