Day # 21
I suppose my posts will be weekly from now on, or every couple of days
Some updates! The octo is out every day when I get home, I’ve been feeding him 2 saltwater shrimp a day, they are small, about half the size of a peppermint shrimp. One when I get home, one when I go to bed.
He is a pretty smart fella, he knows his food is in the acclimation box lol. Of course he can see it though. I recently went out and bought 100 shrimp, as soon as I put them in the box, the octo reached into the box through the small holes and took one out for himself. Honestly didn’t think he’d be able to get one out, I know he can reach in there, but the shrimp are bigger then the holes, he’s only done this once. I hadn’t fed him all day, I guess he was helping himself lol.
The disappointing news was that 2/3 of the 100 shrimp were dead by the Time I got back to my apartment. I called the lfs and just got 200 saltwater shrimp for free

you have no idea how annoying it was taking out each dead shrimp one at a time. There are still some laying on the sand, I’m going to leave them in. It’s good for the biological media, I’ll just have to do a water change if the water tests are a tad high. I’m acclimating the 200 shrimp as we speak.
speaking of water changes, I just did a water test yesterday and nitrates were between 20-40 ppm. So I did a 25 gallon water change. The dead shrimp in the sand happened afterwards so I imagine I will have to do one again soon. I also cleaned the sponge filter in the sump in aquarium water. Still have not cleaned the skimmer, that’s the plan this weekend.
As of right now the octo is not out, I imagine when all those dead shrimp were floating around he had himself a buffet. Ugh lol.
I still dose with microbacter, whenever there’s potential for big bio loads. Like the shrimp incident. I also just purchased purple up, which encourages coralline algae growth. Started dosing yesterday.
Do you guys remember the two or three peppermint shrimp the octo could never find and catch? I released them into the tank about 2 weeks ago I believe. We’ll they are still there

I’ve witnessed the octo trying to hunt them multiple times, he knows where they hide, but they are too quick. Not going to lie they are getting bigger.
As for the clean up crew I purchased a few weeks ago they are all still alive, the octo has not eaten the hermit crabs, or snails. Not to go off topic but I mentioned a while back that my salinity was a tad high, it is now 1.025, back on track.
Also thanks for the feedback guys!!! I really appreciate it (: believe me, I read and take your advice!
I just bought a big ass shell I’m going to put in there, maybe he’ll crawl inside of it. Anyways I haven’t taken too many pics lately but I’ll post some below.