What to feed my carribean reef octo? (O. briareus)?? How often??

[DocOct]

Hey everyone, I’ve had my girl (Doc. Oct. 😂) for a few weeks now, approaching a month soon. The first week and a half I made the mistake of just putting the feeder crabs in the tank with her. Thinking she will just eat one a day or so, but she was pigging out lol.
I’ve read some things stating overfeeding them basically causes them to have a short life expectancy. I’ve switched to having the live crabs and shrimp in a separate feeder tank and I give her either one shrimp or crab a day. (Emerald crabs)
Is one time a day still on the heavy side? Should I go every other? Hoping someone can share their experience/knowledge with me on this.
My last concern is that she eats the small emerald crab once a day and I would like to switch to hermits soon but is one hermit a day sufficient for them? They seem so small lol so I just want to make sure.

Some info about Doc. Oct. If it’ll help,
- Caribbean reef octopus
- Female
- About 6 months
- Has been really social and accepting food from my hand easily
- 55 Gal tank
- Just her, three starfish and two urchins in the tank






Thanks!

 

[tonmo]

Is one time a day still on the heavy side? Should I go every other? Hoping someone can share their experience/knowledge with me on this.

I'm not an expert, but you could try the Search feature on this site -- I tried the term feeding frequency and it seems every other day, or even 2-3 days a week is appropriate, but this may differ by species, so do have a closer look.

How'd she do over the weekend?

 

[DocOct]

I'm not an expert, but you could try the Search feature on this site -- I tried the term feeding frequency and it seems every other day, or even 2-3 days a week is appropriate, but this may differ by species, so do have a closer look.

How'd she do over the weekend?

Thanks for the reply mate! She did awesome. I have the feeder crabs in another tank along with some shrimp. I’ve been giving her one a day or one every other depending how big the crab or shrimp I give her is and how active she is also.
Talked to a few reputable shops that keep them and did some reading online and it seems about 1 a day or every other like you said does just fine. They can go pretty long without food so it seems the every other day is fine, just have been trying to bond with her on my hand or trying to teach her to eat out of this jar so I’ve been doing about 1 small crab a day for the time being.
Good buddy of mine said the hermits I was looking at in the fish store were too small really, so I found out they’ll sell me emerald crabs for $1 ea so I’ve been good with them and I get a dozen of live shrimp for $3.50 so I haven’t been spending to much feeding her. Still keeping her active and engaged with live prey I feel like though!
She’s been eating out my and my sons hand no problem and hanging out on my hand for a little bit after just feeling around and what not. I’ve tried a styrofoam bobber and a bigger floating lego as some toys for her and she’s just not interested so I took them out.
Hoping she can learn the jar trick or some other cool things to keep her mind sharp! I video it all along the way so I will def drop some pictures in the future!

 

[tonmo]

Nice; makes sense -- will look forward to the pics / vids!