[Octopus]: Thor - Callistoctopus? The dream became reality!!

bläckis

O. vulgaris
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hey guys! Long time since I was active here,I do apologize for that.

Well as the title says it finally became true I finally got my own octopus here in Sweden !!!! Yaaay !

So to make a long story short, I made a thread here before and was about to get my octopus, but my lfs never got them on their list so I basically had to just wait.. for about half a year to be exact haha. And a lot of others stuff came up in my life as well so I didn't have The time to write here on tonmo.

Anyway back to the wonderful news! I got my octopus today and it came in on the list as a octopus macropus, it's hard to tell if that is really the spicies but it kinda looks like a macropus. They got 2 of them and I was lucky they let me chose which if them I wanted. Of course I chose the smallest one and he looks like a juvenile to be honest Wich is awsome. I will try to post a picture on him it's not super good but I hope to get more in the future.

I must say I feel like its Christmas and I'm very excited. I want to give a special thanks to Colin and Nancy king because your book really came in handy :smile:

I'm not to worried about the food I got plenty of smaller crabs, ampipods, in the tank I also added live gammarus and live smaller shrimp to the tank. As a good start up food source. I'm able to order live shrimp,gammarus and a lot of other stuff from my lfs.

If you guys can give me any tips or recommendations please share them.

Sorry for my English if something is spelled wrong and I did write this on my phone.

Best regards from Sweden :smile:
 

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Congrats! Tagging @Colin and @Nancy so they see this next time they visit (Colin is a rare visitor these days, but agree, their book is great).

LFS' identification of species is fairly hit-or-miss (meaning they don't always get it right); looking forward to more pictures. Also, tell us about your tank - it's been a while!
 
@tonmo thanks for tagging them, hope they see it :smile:

My tank is a 65 gallon tank, I don't have a sump which I kinda regret not having but I made some customized things like drilling holes at the top of the hood so I get a lot of oxygen in the water but it's still escape proof. I have a hang on the back oversized skimmer and i do 25 % waterchanges Every week.

I have thought about trying the triton ( other metods) looked it up and it seems interesting, does anyone here use the Triton methods or is it just not optimal for a octopus tank?

@DWhatley it's very hard to tell, mine looks very similar to both puddles and the calictopus so I find it hard to be certain haha.

He is shifting colors from white to brown and red. Looks like he have some sort of web around the arms but he is still very small so once again I could be mistaken. He is nocturnal he never comes out when the lights are on :/ but I hope with some time he will turn to a more day active octopus.

I can give some amazing news and even I was chocked when it happen, last night I tried to feed him a clam and he went straight to my hand and ate it ! I mean I heard juveniles or octopuses in general would be very hard to get to eat dead food, or am just very lucky.
today I tried again this time with lance fish and once again he ate it so I am very happy that he accepts dead food like the clams and the lance fish and I am very happy he already seems to know that I am his daddy who provides the food :wink: hahahahaha.

Here is a picture when he is eating the clam
 

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I believe Puddles WAS a Callistoctopus but marked him as a generic macropus for many years. He was one of my favorite animals but he never acclimated to daylight. In his last week, he did come out (hence the video) in the early AM which made me think the strong nocturnal behavior might have to do with light sensitivity of the eyes.
 
Congratulations that you finally have your octopus - sounds like a good one! I'm glad the book Colin and I wrote was a help!

You're lucky to have an octopus who's so friendly and accepts dead food right away. He'll always need some live food, but it's convenient to use frozen shrimp, for instance.

Looking forward to following your journal and seeing more photos.

And your English is excellent!

Nancy
 
@Nancy your book is really good it have helors me a lot.

So a quick update, he has been taking food from me since he came but seems to have lost interest in the clams :s or he is just allready fed up by the time I try to feed him. He took a lance fish though but when I woke up this morning almost half of it was not eaten which of course made me a little worried that he might lost interest in the food. It could be its a little to big as well I don't know, could that be a reason ? Should I try to half the size on it?
I have a lot of live food in the tank as well like snails,hermit crabs and crabs but he doesn't seem interested in the hermit crabs or the snails he has been in front of them several times without even bothering to eat them. Can't tell if he been eating just crabs or not.

I'm wondering he might be to young to understand that the snails and the hermits are eatable. But I guess I shouldn't worry to much.
 
A lot of octopus keepers have trouble at first with the feeding. Your octopus may change what food he's interested in. For instance, he may start on clams
and even a snail or two. They all love shrimp, so you might try offering
some just-unfrozen shrimp (freshness and quality seem to matter). They Jove live shrimp, but my octopus had to learn how to catch them, so live shrimp weren't an immediate food source. Your octopus will probably eat both shrimp and crabs eventually. Hi

Yes, you could try smaller pieces of food, and experiment until you find the right size.

What size is your octopus? Could you please estimate mantle length and arm length?

Have you thought about a name yet? Hi
 
So last night he did take the lance fish again :smile: this time I cut it in half and it seems that it works better for him, so the size could have been the problem at first. Looks like he love the lance fish as soon I put the feeding stick with it he goes for it directly haha. He also took a clam last night so I guess he still likes them as well. So he is eating which is good.

I will order live shrimp from my LFS the comming days, they are perfect size. Still got a lot of live food in the tank but I would like to try the live shrimp as well and see if he goes after it.

I would say that the mantle length is approximately 7 cm or 6cm and his arms are very long can't say for sure how long they are, hard to say. I will try getting better pictures of him tonight.

Yes the name is Thor
you know Swedish Octopus needs a Nordic name :wink:
 
@DWhatley ofcourse you can :smile:

A little update on Thor :smile:

The last two nights he has been coming out later than before 11 pm to be exact, which of course gave me a little heart attack hahaha. It's not easy to have your first octopus haha I always worry if something is wrong or if something happend but I guess it's normal especially when I have waited for this opportunity for 10 years :smile:

He still takes dead food which is awsome but it seems that it depends because some nights he just don't want to eat anything I offer him and the night after he can eat everything I offer, so I suspect that he does eat some of the crabs or snails that are in the tank those days he just seems to wanna relax haha.

I managed to make a deal with my LFS today ! They will send me live shrimp every month for a good price, the shrimps are good size and are white, here we call them cervettes shrimp looks like smaller shore shrimp I will take a picture when I get them.

@Nancy i got a better picture of him as well that might answer your question about the size :smile:
 

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I almost forgot I will also add a canister filter to my tank today, since I don't have a sump. But I will almost just have biological filtration in the canister like crushed coral and bioballs. I know there are many opinions on canisters but I will rinse it every week and since 90% of the canister will just have biological filtration in it I guess that would be good?

If anyone has experience on this please come with your tips and tricks:smile:
 
Are you using any kind of chemical filtration? If not, you might want to consider using carbon instead of a biologic media in the canister. This will give you a third form of filtration, help your water clarity and will allow you more time between filter media changes.
 
@DWhatley
yes I do use chemical filtration as well like carbon do you mean to fill the entire canister with just carbon?

I use Zero it's a product from Nyos I add 0,2 ml every day, the dose is extremely low but it reduces nitrate and phosphate in the water. You can see a picture on the product
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the only filter media I have is in the first chamber in the canister the rest is biological media like crushed coralls and bio balls.
 

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