Vladimir

abate

Cuttlefish
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Joined
Aug 24, 2009
Messages
24
for all those who said it couldn't be done, for the past 2 weeks my Octopus Mercatoris, Vladimir, has been living peacefully with more than a few other species; 4 damselfish, a chocolate chip starfish, a sand sifting starfish, mushroom coral, a condylactus anemone, and multiple snails. i just wanted to document this, as i have been told by forum posts that this couldn't be done.

on a different note, Vladimir, the 2 week old (i'm not sure his real age), purple (they camouflage) Merc. has been displaying some very weird habits.

1st- there is a piece of liverock in my tank that has several holes in it: by holes i mean several nickel sized passageways in the rock that all connect at a center chamber (almost like swiss cheese). immediately he established that rock as his den. the first day i got him, i didn't feed him, so he ate a snail in the tank and used it's shell as a cork, to block the one of the 3 holes so that the fish couldn't bother him and that the light couldn't get to him. when i started feeding him, the next day, he used 2 live snails for the other 2 holes, placing their feet up so that they couldn't escape. smart right?

another weird thing i notice when i feed him, is that he he eats the entire fish, bones and all, and then shoots the bones out his siphon in tiny pieces. is this normal? and is this how he poops?

anyway, in this post i just wanted to address common rumors while telling about Vladimir. although it might seem hard to respond to a post like this, i was hoping that the readers could not only adress my 2 concers but post their own weird octopus stories and experiences as well.
 
the first day i got him, i didn't feed him, so he ate a snail in the tank and used it's shell as a cork, to block the holes so that the fish couldn't bother him and that the light couldn't get to him. when i started feeding him, the next day, he used 2 live snails for the other 2 holes, placing their feet up so that they couldn't escape. smart right?


Quotes from prior requested advice thread:
IMO I would remove all fish. A mercatoris is very shy and even if the fish don't attack it, you will likely never see the octopus.

Snails of any type are fine. There is a possibility of some being consumed in the first 2 weeks (or appearing to be, sometimes it is just the shells the octos want and they don't/can't harm the snail) but IME octos prefer other foods and will ignore them after settling in.

I am not sure what a merc would eat that has bones.
 
abate;148671 said:
i'm getting a merc. and i need to know what to remove from my reef tank. i've herd that there fine with corals so i'm not going to mention them.
which of the following will have to go?
a coral banded shrimp
a 4 inch peaceful angelfish
some semiagresive anemonies
5 damsels
some nassaries snails
and a (4-5 inch) purple lobster​

please resposnd soon because it comes thursday​


I never said you couldn't i just said if it were my octo, then all of that would be eaten. i did the same experiment and the result was a few hundered dollars in dead fish. It took her six months before she showed any aggression, but once she did she cleared out the tank in no time. what happened to the shrimp, lobster, and angels?
 
(captfish) i took your advice and moved the more expensive stuff out of my tank because i felt that the scared the octopus (like dwhatley said). i left the damsels in because they were the only fish that didn't seem to mind the octopus in the tank; every thing else seemed scared of the new species that they had never seen before. keeping them in might have lost me the same amount you lost.

(dwhatley) damsels do a weird thing at night (at least in my tank): in the dark they turn a faint shade of grey and hide under the liverock. a Merc, who is small and shy, would be scared of them, but while the damsels are hiding, Vlad seems to be fine. on the contrary; Vlad seems to very happy with his surroundings and between 8pm and 6 am is out and about. i feed Vlad a frozen baby silverside (a very small fish) almost every night, and yes it has bones. although anytime he doesn't feel like eating (when he won't eat the food i try to give him), i'll wake up the next day to find a snail's missing.
 

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