Sick Octopus

[Sinks]

My little fella has begun to ignore food, and threw away a shrimp that i gave him. He lets them come up and touch him, he pulls away but doesn't seem to have any interest them. I have read that a dis-interest in food is the lead-up to death and am very worried.
He is my first and i've had him 2 months. He is still very small and up until now has been very active and would chase the shrimp around. He still comes out every night but moves slowly up and down the glass. He still has full colour and will change on the rocks/gravel etc. ( i understand they lose their colour when sick)
Does anyone kno if they get bored of a constant diet? or if cold weather would slow their activity? its winter in aust and the water would be quite cold.
ph is 8.0 and kh is 10 - 11 i did a 25% water change last sat and will do another tomorrow (sat) to be on the safe side.
any thoughts or advice would be appreciated

 

[Nancy]

Hi sinks,

It's true, you may have a dwarf octopus at the end of his life.

Then too, variety of food, especially something like live crabs that they love, will help inspire interest in food.

It's possible that they lose interest in food for a few days.

Cold temperatures may slow down activity, especially if it's an octo that comes from waters where the temperature is warmet.

Also check your other water parameters: sg, nitrites, nitrates and ammonia and let us know.

good luck with this,
Nancy

 

[Sinks]

The good news is that hes eating again, he emerged early this evening and flashed his colours for a while before going for a shrimp. He in his cave right now enjoying his feast! fingers crossed!

 

[octopus_octo]

Yay good for him and u

 

[Jean]

Water temp can play a part too, our Squidgy is very lethargic at the moment and his appetite has dropped off. The water temp is around 8 celcius (~46 F) at the moment!

J

 

[chrono_war01]

why is it at 8? Is there a problem with the tank or is it supposed to be like that?

 

[Jean]

why is it at 8? Is there a problem with the tank or is it supposed to be like that?

Is supposed to be that! we have an open (flow through) aquarium where we take the water from the harbour and that is the current temp! We run the tanks at ambient temp as we get all of our animals from the local environment and that's what's best for them! In summer it can get as high as ooooooh 17C (62.6 F)

J

 

[chrono_war01]

wow, 17 C is "such" a hig temp.

 

[Sinks]

A flow through from the harbour?? far out ur setup must be amazing! does it cost a bit to run? this is my first marine tank, just a little one, but i want to upgrade to a mass reef style for a bigger occy. Wats the power usage like?

 

[Jean]

A flow through from the harbour?? far out ur setup must be amazing! does it cost a bit to run? this is my first marine tank, just a little one, but i want to upgrade to a mass reef style for a bigger occy. Wats the power usage like?

Er yes it is ......it's actually a 75 year old public aquarium!!!!! ANd costs HUGE amounts to run, what with pumps, back up pumps , back up gennys etc Power usage is high....don't know the figures

check out www.otago.ac.nz/marinestudies

for some pics and what we do!

Cheers

J

 

[Sinks]

Ah yeh that explains a bit, i thought you were talking about a personal aquarium! Id imagine that would cost a fair bit to run

 

[chrono_war01]

I bet that would cost at least a ton of 100 dollar bills. Sounds nice though, wish I could manage a public aquarium...heh.

 

[BENABEHENRY]

Our Octopus Stumpy would do the same thing. We have had him for 2 months and for the first 6 weeks, he ate every night. The one night - I fed him and he spat it back at me, same with the following night. I thought something was wrong, but on the 3rd night he ate. So now we are on a feeding schedule of every 2 - 3 nights....depending on whether he hangs around waiting to be fed, or comes out to say hi, then disappears to his den
mandy

 

[Nancy]

I notice from the other thread that you're feeding Stumpy mostly frozen food. It might be good to offer some live food in addition to the frozen - are any suitable crabs available?

Nancy

 

[Sinks]

I have adopted the same schedule mandy - feeding every couple of nights.
He seems to have pulled up fine from this little epsiode, he came out the other night with a voracious appetite. Judging from wat happened with Stumpy i'd say his behaviour was due to overfeeding.
I am beginning to recognise his different moods - sometimes he'll just dance up and down the glass, stopping to sit in the corner and stare - he'll ignore food in this reflection time. When he's hungry he'll stick to the rocks, and follow my hand around the tank waiting for his snack.
Ive hand him for almost 3 months now, im quite chuffed
Justin