random thought/question

[Rudiger]

Some time in the future I'll buy another octopus, most likely a bimaculoides. Ill store live food for it in the sump. The sump is right next to the tank so if there are crabs in the sump the octopus will be able to see them. I know bimacs arent known to leave the water, but if it saw food do you think it would be tempted to go exploring and find a way into the sump?

When I first thought of this I was thinking it would be really cool if the octo went into the sump to get a meal and would make for a great ceph story. But then I realized that if it figured out it could get into the sump by crawling up the return pipe it would block the flow of water and cause my sump to overflow. I can just cover the tube with mesh, but I was wondering what are your thoughts on this? Would a bimac go exploring like this and would it ever try to go up the return pipe against the flow of water?

pat

[OctoMonkey]

I think it probably would Pat,
I often see mine with its arms out the water but never its whole body like the briareus used to.
That might be a cool party trick, Im sure the octo would soon learn to wait at the door until it was feeding time, dont know if it would come back out in a hurry tho, especially if you have lots of crabs in there.....

In my second octo/sump type thing i drilled 2 x 2" holes for overflow for the very reason of pipes being blocked, My cuttle tank has 3 x 1 1/4" holes in it too

Colin

[fish boy2]

my schools octopus when we got it so how got out of the tank and explored the room and we almost didn't find it

[cephalopoder]

I kept a 10 gallon tank dedicated to holding hermit crabs about 2 feet from my bimac tank and never once had a problem. I am not sure if could see into that tank from a distance. I would just put a bulk head screen over the water output into your main tank. If you are worried about it getting clogged you could put a tee on it and have two out puts on the return end.