What are you feeding your octopus?

[Bonju]

I feed mine fidler crabs, ghost shripms and some minnows. Here in The Philippines it's easy to get food and catch some octopus haha!

 

[SolidNaza]

yeah, I was wondering how does one knows if the snail is freshwater or saltwater, thanks for the information

 

[CaptFish]

yeah, I was wondering how does one knows if the snail is freshwater or saltwater, thanks for the information

Two ways. first the store you buy them at will have them marked as saltwater. Two, if they are living in saltwater then they are most likely saltwater snails. If you find them in a freshwater then they are most likely not saltwater snails.

 

[DWhatley]

There are some that are brackish water as well and can usually survive in a marine aquarium. I have bought snails at the international market where the sellers had no idea (or not enough English to tell me) so I bought some and tried one in fresh and one in salt. The snail in freshwater did not come out of its shell but the one in saltwater became active. I put both in a spare saltwater tank along the others I bought for a couple of days. All survived and were active (including the one that would not come out in freshwater) so I suspect they were accustomed to brackish water. After observing them for a couple of days, they were distributed to the tanks.

I suspect a similar test on a freshwater snail would cause death or worse. Land snails cannot tollerate salt so I am not sure if a freshwater only snail would start to dissolve or not.

 

[DWhatley]

Blue Crab Claws from Seafood Market

A couple of weeks ago we saw live blue crab at the International market we visited. I wanted to get one for Diablo but they were really too large and LMecher has mentioned how messy and tank impacting feeding a whole crab is. However, Neal looked in the bin and made the suggestion that we try to collect just claws that were already removed. We were able to get a dozen or so and brought them home. What a great food offering! Even LittleBit can handle a full claw and takes it very enthusiastically (an then I have trouble getting the empty shell out of the tank as both octos will try to prevent removal) but what we have been doing is giving the full claw part to Diego and the large attached arm part to Little bit. It takes them awhile to eat the meat but the claws are completely empty when they are done and there is virtually no mess to clean up except the hollowed out shell.

We went to two different Asian markets today to try to get more (the original market is further away). Either they had been shopped out, don't get as many as the original market, or the end of the season is near because there were fewer crabs and way fewer claws but we still came home with some octo food. As with the first batch, we froze all but the one we fed today.

We also made a seafood rescue* attempt since our rescued* conch is still doing well. This time we found live abalone and brought one home to see if it would survive (also brought home some clams to put in the octo tanks as optional food/clean up crew).

*Note: I do eat seafood and the term rescue is a bit tongue-in-cheek and more of an experiment of what will still survive than any intent of rescue. Since we don't know where this animal came from (it was not posted) and different species live at different temperatures, there is a chance our tank is too warm.

PS
Abalone not doing well. I believe I have a correct ID as a southern CA/Baja MX species so the water temp is fine but the brissle worms and pods were all over it tonight so it is isolated in a bucket for observation (it was still alive but not very responsive).

 

[KathyRRozier]

How to feed octopus

Octopus find their prey using visual or tactile signals acute. Slow down the animal with its suckers, wrapped in a tangled mass of arms, and draw close to them. Most octopuses and cuttlefish bite their prey and injects saliva to paralyze. Before swallowing, to dismember the animal into small pieces with sharp peaks.

The diet of the species of octopus living at the bottom is mainly mollusks (clams and sea snails in particular), crustaceans (mainly crabs) and polychaete worms. In the open sea octopuses and squids eat mainly fish, shrimp and other cephalopods.

 

[Alex_Fischer_]

I feed my Abdopus a mixture of live and dead gulf coast shrimp of all sizes and small blue crab that I cast net as well as small misc. fish he deffedently prefers live shrimp and crab but readily accepts dead as well

 

[Wafflez777]

Im thinking about getting a bimac, i don't entirely know what to feed it right now but i'm thinking either crabs, snails, or hermit crabs with a mixture of frozen shrimp (thawed of course) Is this good or is there a cheaper or better food to feed it? also, how much might this cost weekly? i don't live right next to the beach but i live near 3 fish/pet stores.

 

[CaptFish]

Your diet sounds good. Snails and hermits have mixed success, but are great for clean up anyway, shrimp and crabs tend to be the primary diet for most. Its really hard to place a price per week on a Octo. Everyone eat s different amounts and prices of the food varies greatly depending on where you live. Figure on anywhere from a couple shrimp a week to several shrimp per day.

 

[Wafflez777]

how many times shold i feed or attempt to feed my octopus a day? btw thanks for the help.

 

[CaptFish]

again this sort of varies per octo. i have had some that begged for food whenever they saw me in the room, and i have has some that would only eat every other day. Once a day is typical.

 

[DWhatley]

Here is a post Joe-Ceph authored that is specific to bimacs

 

[Joe-Ceph]

There are really two separate but related topics: how much to feed (total amount per week/month/whatever) and how frequent to feed (daily, every 2nd, third, fourth day, etc.).

How much to feed (per week/month)
I think a baby octopus has little "reserves", and should probably be fed daily, and maybe as much as it wants, until it has enough extra body mass to be able to be accidentally underfed, without starving to death. Larger than that (1.5" mantle and up ?) I feed sparingly. I'm one of those who believes that keeping a bimac cold (60-62 degrees) and feeding sparingly, will prolong (slow down) its life. I've kept a bimac as cold as 55 degrees, but found that it was noticeably less active (not as interesting). The warmer it is, the more you'll need to feed, just to keep up with its metabolism. I want to feed enough for the bimac to grow, but slowly. The way I find out how much that is, is to gradually decrease the amount of food until my bimac stopped growing, or even began to get smaller. Then I bumped up the amount of food by about 25%-30%, and called that the "right" amount. As the bimac grows, I increase the amount of food proportionally. A very rough guess would be a piece of food about the size of 1.5-2 tentacles (at a water temp of 60-62 degrees). I feed that amount every three or four days (twice per week)


How often to feed
I feed every three or four days. I do that for my own convenience. It would probably be better to feed the same total amount of food per week, but to do it in smaller feedings every day, or every other day. I don't want to work that hard, but the advantages would probably be:
1) Waste would be produced at a more even rate, and support a more stable population of nitrifying bacteria.
2) My bimac would have more interaction with me, a more interesting life, and might come out and play every day. As it is now, I don't usually see much of my octopus the day (or two) after a feeding.

 

[DWhatley]

Effect of two fresh diets and sexual maturation on the proximate and fatty acid profile of several tissues in Octopus vulgaris: specific retention of arachidonic acid in the gonads
J. Estefanell,J. Socorro,M. Izquierdo,J. Roo 2014 (subscription)

Abstract
Most nutritional studies on Octopus vulgaris were based on males to avoid interaction with reproductive processes, focusing on muscle and digestive gland tissues. This study intends to evaluate the effect of two fresh diets, a fish diet (bogue Boops boops) and a mixed diet (600 g kg−1 crab Portunus pelagicus and 400 g kg−1 bogue), on the biochemical composition of muscle, digestive gland and gonad in males and females of O. vulgaris. Six octopuses per diet were selected (n = 3 per sex) after 60 days of rearing in floating cages. Weight increase was higher in males (3–3.2 kg) than in females (0.9 kg) regardless of diet associated with sexual maturation. Gondosomatic Index in females was 11.3–13.4%. High-lipid content in fish (440 g kg−1 dw) was reflected in digestive gland regardless of the diet, while muscle and testis showed a relatively stable composition. The increase in protein content in the ovary was related to sexual maturation. The low arachidonic content in bogue was reflected in all tissues, with no apparent negative effect on growth and welfare. However, specific retention of arachidonic in the gonads, related to high arachidonic content in crab, underlined the importance of this fatty acid in for gonad development in O. vulgaris.

Unfortunately the abstract does not tell much but note that the word "fresh" does not imply freshwater.

 

[DWhatley]

Another study finding even "gut loaded" (coated) brine shrimp don't provide enough nutrition for octopus hatchlings

Effect of Artemia inherent fatty acid metabolism on the bioavailability of essential fatty acids for Octopus vulgarisparalarvae development
Diana B. Reis, Nieves G. Acost, Eduardo Almans, Diego Garrido, José P. Andrade, António V. Sykes, Covadonga Rodríguez

Abstract
The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of Artemia metanauplii endogenous fatty acid (FA) metabolism in the actual availability of dietary essential fatty acids (EFA) for Octopus vulgaris paralarvae development. To this end, both Artemia metanauplii inherent radiolabelled FA metabolism and the Octopus vulgaris paralarvae FA metabolism, after being fed with Artemia metanauplii incubated with radiolabelled FAs, were determined. Metanauplii were incubated in tissue culture plates during 12 h, with 0.3 μM of a [1-14C]FA, including either 18:3n-3, 20:4n-6 (ARA), 20:5n-3 (EPA) or 22:6n-3 (DHA), added individually to separate wells as their potassium salts bound to bovine serum albumin. A total of 3600 one-day-old paralarvae were reared up to 24 h in order to ensure the ingestion of a minimum amount of the labelled Artemia. Paralarvae rearing was performed in 4 L cylinder conical tanks at a density of 25 paralarvae L−1. Labelled Artemia metanauplii were added to each paralarvae rearing tank according to a specific [1-14C]FA treatment. Artemia in vivometabolism results showed a preferential catabolism of DHA, which was translated into (1) the lower incorporation of this FA into Artemia total lipids (TL); (2) the highest amount of de novo synthesis of shorter chain-length FAs, as a result of the β-oxidation of the original DHA substrate. The registered amounts of radiolabelled substrates incorporated into O. vulgarisparalarvae TL fed with labelled Artemia metanauplii were extremely low. Nonetheless, certain amount of intact [1-14C]ARA and [1-14C]EPA was recovered into octopus paralarvae TL and particularly into polar lipid classes, suggesting the possibility of using Artemia as a vehicle to provide ARA and EPA to octopus paralarvae without interfering their bioavailability for the de novo synthesis of phospholipids. On the other hand, and despite of the high amount of [1-14C]18:3n-3 incorporated into Artemia TL, the FAs with the highest esterification rate into Artemia TAG (18:3n-3 and DHA) were also the lowest incorporated into paralarvae TL. Therefore, the present results suggest that O. vulgaris paralarvae may have a potentially low capacity to metabolise dietary TAG, and so, Artemia may not be the most appropriate vehicle to provide DHA to paralarvae.

Therefore, the present results suggest that O. vulgaris paralarvae may have a potentially low capacity to metabolise dietary TAG, and so, Artemia may not be the most appropriate vehicle to provide DHA to paralarvae.