- Joined
- Jun 15, 2021
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
- 6
Hi all, even though this is my first post, I've been a member here for about 6 months and have found so much helpful information here. I've had 3 octos over the past few years and recently brought my newest home. He is by far the most bizarre creature I've housed. For starters, what was marketed as an Atlantic Pygmy Octopus is THE LARGEST Pygmy octopus I have come across. He was shipped with a little piece of PVC pipe and tried to stuff his humongous body in that little pipe and was spilling out of both ends!
So I'm not quite convinced he's any sort of a dwarf octopus because he is just huge and he eats almost a much as my full grown Abdopus use to!
He acclimated just fine, and a little while after I released him into my aquarium he began to dig. Everywhere. I have all of these little mounds of sand all over my tank! That would be fine except now the water quality is all over the place. My tank is about 14 months old, it's a 32 gallon; the water parameters are generally Nit/Amm 0, Nitrate 0-5, sg 1.026 and the pH has always, ALWAYS been 8.0-8.2. I will be the first to admit that I don't go crazy vacuuming my sanded- I did that once a few years ago and killed all my fish with a huge nitrite and ammonia spike afterwords so I just lightly clean off what is on top now and leave it alone. Shortly after he began his construction projects he nitrite went up to .5 so did the ammonia; I did a couple water changes and that has since normalized. Now my pH is suddenly 7.4! I don't know what to do, the octopus seems to be doing fine, he is eating ok, currently wedged under a rock and throws things at me when I go check on him so I don't think he's too bad off.
Has anyone had an octopus tear up their tank like this? Also, what should I do about the pH, daily water changes or do I need to get some sort of additive? I've never added anything in this aquarium, it's been stable once it finished cycling. Do I need to try to get him out of there until the pH comes up? I've left him alone because he doesn't seem to be stressed or struggling in anyway- I kind of thought trying to get him out would be more stressful than the pH dropping to where it's at. I'm including the best picture I could get of him, and it's not that good because there's some algae on the glass that I had been trying to remove previously. And he wasn't too thrilled about his impromptu photo shoot either. If anyone has any info on what type he could be I'd welcome any input. I will try to get a better picture if the opportunity presents itself.
Thanks!
So I'm not quite convinced he's any sort of a dwarf octopus because he is just huge and he eats almost a much as my full grown Abdopus use to!
He acclimated just fine, and a little while after I released him into my aquarium he began to dig. Everywhere. I have all of these little mounds of sand all over my tank! That would be fine except now the water quality is all over the place. My tank is about 14 months old, it's a 32 gallon; the water parameters are generally Nit/Amm 0, Nitrate 0-5, sg 1.026 and the pH has always, ALWAYS been 8.0-8.2. I will be the first to admit that I don't go crazy vacuuming my sanded- I did that once a few years ago and killed all my fish with a huge nitrite and ammonia spike afterwords so I just lightly clean off what is on top now and leave it alone. Shortly after he began his construction projects he nitrite went up to .5 so did the ammonia; I did a couple water changes and that has since normalized. Now my pH is suddenly 7.4! I don't know what to do, the octopus seems to be doing fine, he is eating ok, currently wedged under a rock and throws things at me when I go check on him so I don't think he's too bad off.
Has anyone had an octopus tear up their tank like this? Also, what should I do about the pH, daily water changes or do I need to get some sort of additive? I've never added anything in this aquarium, it's been stable once it finished cycling. Do I need to try to get him out of there until the pH comes up? I've left him alone because he doesn't seem to be stressed or struggling in anyway- I kind of thought trying to get him out would be more stressful than the pH dropping to where it's at. I'm including the best picture I could get of him, and it's not that good because there's some algae on the glass that I had been trying to remove previously. And he wasn't too thrilled about his impromptu photo shoot either. If anyone has any info on what type he could be I'd welcome any input. I will try to get a better picture if the opportunity presents itself.
Thanks!