bluespotocto;150161 said:
Well that knocks that off the list. My dad is getting on my back about the price of live food and squirt isnt really taking frozen stuff yet.
I suspect that bimacs greatly prefer scallop to shrimp, so if you haven't tried it yet, try it. Costco sells loose thawed scallops on Fridays and Saturdays, so you can buy just one scallop (for a few cents) and try it.
You caught your own octopus, so I assume you live close enough to the beach that you can go collect your own octo food (for free) and keep it alive in a critter keeper or something in the tank. I suggest you head back to campus point during low tide, and collect any tiny mollusks you can find on the rocks. It should be easy to find little limpets, chitons, snails, and hermit crabs. crab any small crabs you can find, and look for small muscles. You may have to open them for your octo, but they will be live. Avoid cowries (they produce large amounts of slime when attacked). Look for little bumps, or holes, in the wet sand at low tide. Dig down about 1.5 inches and you'll find olive shells. I haven't tried feeding them to an octopus, but if you break the shell with a hammer, or pliers, I'll bet a little octopus would love them.
Take a knife to cut muscles free, and to scrape limpets off of the rocks, and take a glove so you can grab shore crabs without fear of a pinch. There is also a kind of limpet that lives on the central flat strap of kelp (the part that the leaves grow out of) and those are easy to get off.
There will be super low tides for a few days starting on Feb 25th, but those will be the last very low tides during daylight hours for a while. Here is a link for a
tide predictor that allows you to get a listing of upcoming low tides, just select your area.
self caught live food is a hassle to collect and keep alive, but it beats paying for live food, and it will work for a month or two until you find a frozen food that your octopus will eat.
Oh, also, I found that a new octopus (scared) wouldn't take muscles unless I opened them, and left them in front of their den over night. (open them with a thin bladed knife)