Best food for Octopuses
 

I am going to be doing research for one of my professors at Illinois College and need to find a secondary food source to keep the Octopuses alive. The primary food source is going to be freshwater crayfish. I found only one paper at my library talking about diets of octopuses and it stated that frozen marine shrimp provided the best growth rates. I was personally considering marine snails or some type of fresh water fish such as Tilapia spp.

I would appreciate suggestions for a food source and what kind of success with growth they provided. Any scientific articles to support your ideas would be excellent!

Thank you for your help!

What kind of octopus are you working with? If there is already published work with this species, I would contact the author and see what they fed. Have you tried google scholar and your university's library? I think FW crayfish, shrimp, and other crustaceans would be the best bet in terms of food. Freshwater apple snails would probably be a good food. Most marine snails have heavily calcified shells and would be a difficult food for the octo to deal with.

HTH,
Kevin

I talked to my professor and she said "As far as I know (barring anything weird from the National Cephalopod Research Center) we'll be using Octopus bimaculoides."

Anyone else with input for a secondary food source?

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8219489#post8219489 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bravoreefer [/i]
[B]I talked to my professor and she said "As far as I know (barring anything weird from the National Cephalopod Research Center) we'll be using Octopus bimaculoides."

Anyone else with input for a secondary food source? [/B][/QUOTE]

I feed my bimac frozen krill, silversides, and raw shrimp. He loves emerald crabs and has made short order of all of the snails in my tank. I have heard they like clams, but I have used any.

My fellow researcher and advisor have decide to try fresh water golden apple snails. We are researching best choices for alternative food source, preferable fresh water choices. A paper we obtained that stated gold apple snails were high in nutrients.
The primary food alternative will be FW crayfish, and golden apple snails as the secondary source.
We are still awaiting some more equipiment to arrive for the lab to be completed. Once our fiberglassing gets done, we will plump it and start cycling the system preparing for the otcos.
As the research starts, I may start a thread about our results.

When I had my octopus I would stuff large snail shells with squid and he used to love it. Id just be a little hesitant only feeding him freshwater stuff it might be lacking in nutrients that only saltwater stuff has, I'm not sure if it actually is, I'm just guessing it may.

LSD...I think your right about the nutrients that it lacks...a friend of mine was feeding his 5 VERY LARGE moray eels fresh water fish and they were not eager eaters after a while and started getting white spots on their skin and inside their mouths...I had been down in Florida catching bait fish off the pier and froze them every day. I brought a bag over to his house, we thawed a bunch and began to feed the eels. They almost knocked the lids off of the tank when they got a whiff of dinner. Within 2 weeks the white spots were gone and they were healthy as can be. I

I understand it's an experiment for alternative food sources so good luck.

LSD..I used your idea and stuffed my empty hermit crabs shells with frozen krill. Here's a short video of how well it works. I could hardly grab the camera quick enough to show the results. Click on the image to view the video.

[IMG][url=http://s102.photobucket.com/albums/m95/goodwin9/?action=view&current=Clydegetsthecrab.flv][IMG]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m95/goodwin9/th_Clydegetsthecrab.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/IMG]

Awesome, I'm glad that I could help.

Oh yeah, frozen shrimp is another good food to try

Thank you for the ideas! We may try that if the golden apple snails fail on their own. We may just use their shells for a greater cause.
Thanks again for the videos, those were awesome.

The lab just needs to be plumbed as all the equipiment is finally here. We were also approved for a water proof webcam, so once that gets set up, I can post the link so that you may watch the research.

what are you researching with the octopus?

Alternative food sources.

Plumper should be running the RO line from the main tank into our lab this week, then we can lag bolt our tank stand and then plump everything. Should start mixing water soon

An octopus favorite food is salt water crabs. They are designed to eat these. When I used to keep octopus I always fed them green crabs which are very common on any seashore on the east coast of the U.S. These and fiddler crabs are also sold in any bait store very cheaply (on the coast anyway) and fiddler crabs are very soft and easy for an octopus to eat. Also they are from salt water and probably better food for an octopus. They may be available on line. I can collect 100 fiddler crabs in a few minutes in the summer, unfortunately I am probably not living near you.
How do I know about feeding octopus? Because I also eat them.
This was in Sicily a couple of days ago. Don't feel bad for the octopus. They eat them like M and Ms there. Whole.
Paul
:eek1:
[IMG]http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/13094Octopus.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8353768#post8353768 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bravoreefer [/i]
[B]Thank you for the ideas! We may try that if the golden apple snails fail on their own. We may just use their shells for a greater cause.
Thanks again for the videos, those were awesome.

The lab just needs to be plumbed as all the equipiment is finally here. We were also approved for a water proof webcam, so once that gets set up, I can post the link so that you may watch the research. [/B][/QUOTE]

A diet of snails is a failure in itself, no offense intended. They need a variety of marien invert meats, or an invert that eats a variety of other things. FW snails is a fairfly sad diet. REgaurdless of the plans for them to reproduce. For the sake of the octo I would research thier diet a bit more.