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silversides for mercatoris

Leigh

Pygmy Octopus
Registered
Joined
Mar 11, 2005
Messages
9
Hello, I have a mercatoris now since my bimac died at 1 year 4 months. My question is weird from what I've researched. My octo only wants silversides, I've tried to feed him small fiddlers and he rarely eats them but if I put a frozen silverside in with him he gobbles it down even comes out during the day, I've also tried shrimp live and he leaves it until late at night sometime. My main question is are frozen silversides to fatty and lower in nutrition value that would cause him to die prematurely?
 
Leigh,
Are you sure it is a mercatoris? I know Greg's pigglets ate much better than my group but coming out in the daytime to feed is uncharacteristic.
 
I'm about 85% sure, I purchased it from a person who supposedly knew then very well. I'll try and take a digital pic of him. This is the octo that I was asking about setting the tank up on. I left the blue led moonlights in the canopy and added red led lights into it. He doesn't come out unless I put the silverside within about 6 inches of his cave. I've only had him about 2 weeks and did a no no and moved hime 2 times since I got him. He is probably about 4-5 months old I'm guessing and still very small. I've looked at the pics on here and he looks just like one. The way he acts around fiddlers is completely weird though, not like my bimac but this is only my second octo ever. He acts almost like he's confused on rather to eat it or stay away from it, but he loves frozen silversides and shrimp. The guy I purchased him off of only fed him DEAD ghost shrimp, silversides, chunks of shrimp and he even had 2 of these octos together in the same tank. But is silversides enough to keep him healthy?
 
Unfortunately, I am not sure about nutrition. Mine lived on dead ghost shrimp (that IS normal - some took them directly from my fingers), live and recently expired fiddlers and Cyclop-eeze. I could not get them to take frozen shrimp pieces and never tried silver sides. I keep hoping one of the grad students in need of a project will study and report on octo nutrition to give us a better idea of balance. I do know each generation of mine was smaller than that last but that they eat nightly. Greg is trying to note if his tank raised are going to be smaller than the mother. We think quantity of food consumed has something to do with size but octos in the same environment vary greatly in size.
 
dwhatley;125671 said:
Unfortunately, I am not sure about nutrition. Mine lived on dead ghost shrimp (that IS normal - some took them directly from my fingers), live and recently expired fiddlers and Cyclop-eeze. I could not get them to take frozen shrimp pieces and never tried silver sides. I keep hoping one of the grad students in need of a project will study and report on octo nutrition to give us a better idea of balance. I do know each generation of mine was smaller than that last but that they eat nightly. Greg is trying to note if his tank raised are going to be smaller than the mother. We think quantity of food consumed has something to do with size but octos in the same environment vary greatly in size.

Taollan has a lot of data on O. rubescens diet & physiology, but in adult animals.
 

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