can I keep a

[cubano2480]

can I keep a small octopus in a 12g nano tank????


thanks

[LisaD]

maybe a Caribbean pygmy, O. briareus. nothing else that is available that I know of.

[Mizu]

Can you keep them is not really the question.
Will they ever be happy? is the question
a 12g tank is too small to make a GOOD home for any octo (IMHO)
if you have ever seen an octo move you would know what i mean.
They are just everywhere. they like to play and hunt.
Its not like keeping most lower life forms (crabs and such) they are a thinking animal. Almost like a dog or a cat and thought should be given to wether you are providing a home or a GOOD home.

[LisaD]

true

[cubano2480]

lisad what is a maybe a Caribbean pygmy were i can get one ????


hey thanks guys what about 24g nano still to small ???? what size tank is good .....................

thanks

[LisaD]

Octopus briareus. They are very shy. Mine lived in a clamshell, it held the two halves closed with its tentacles, you could see one eye peeking out. It didn't seem to move around much, but it was tending eggs.

Try contacting www.divertom.com, he might be able to get one for you.

I don't know the ideal size tank if they are not tending eggs, maybe they move more when they aren't. I would imagine a 24 would be fine, this is a cryptic species that I'm not sure is all that active, and very small.

[DHyslop]

I think 24 gallons might be a tad small. Hanlon & Wolterding (reference below) summarize three exhaustive studies over 10 years on captive-raised O. briareus. The mean mass of adult specimens was around 900 g, mean total length (tip of the longest arms to the tip of the mantle) being about 600 mm. This isn't a small critter.

IMO 24 gallons is just a bit small for an animal that might grow that big. Movement aside, that's an aweful lot of waste for the system to handle.

Dan

Hanlon, RT & Wolterding, MR, 1989, Behavior, body patterning, growth and life history of Octopus briareus cultured in the laboratory. American Malacological Bulletin, v. 7, no. 1.

[LisaD]

maybe I have the wrong species. this octo was tiny, but an adult, as it was tending eggs. it was collected in the Florida Keys. the collector told me the species commonly lives inside shells. Mine resided in two halves of a clamshell, that still had the hinge. The shell could not have been over 2-2.5 inches across, and the octo was completely concealed inside of it.

[LisaD]

sorry, what I kept was NOT O. briareus, I don't know why I had it in my mind that was the species. DEFINITELY DO NOT keep O. briareus in a small tank! the dwarf species I had would probably be fine. I believe the species I had was O. mercatoris, a large-egged Caribbean species. not only are the eggs large, but the species also tends to lay fewer, rather than more, eggs. they are on stalks and the stalks were attached to the inside of the clam shell.

[DHyslop]

Lisa,

I don't know much about O. mercatoris but it sounds like a match. I know of people in the oceanography department here who've kept wild ones that rode up on the gulfstream and describe them as spending their lives in clam shells peering out at the world.

Did you get yours from Tom? I know a lot of people have gotten O. briareus from him and I wonder if he misidentified it.

Dan

[LisaD]

Dan,

I work for a biological supply company that sells to schools and universities. Our collector in the Florida Keys knows I am a marine life geek, and he sent it to me as a present. It was a surprise, and a very pleasant one.

O. briareus is found in the same area, I believe. Does he sell a pygmy octopus as O. briareus? If so, maybe looking at his site is where I got it in my head that that was the species I had.

Here is a statement from the Cephalopod Page on the section (a bit outdated) naming sources of live cephalopods:

There are several species of small Atlantic octopuses collectively known as "pygmy octopuses" that are not yet clearly described by science yet. One of the most common octopods in the pet trade, the pygmy octopus most often collected near the shorelines and in reefs is most likely the large-egged species Octopus mercatoris. O. joubini, a small-egged species, actually frequents the deeper-water mudflats that collection divers typically don't.

And here is the link:

Sources of Live Cephalopods

Here is a link to an article about O. briareus:

Octopus briareus

Here is a recent thread about O. mercatoris hitchikers in live rock:

RC O. mercatoris thread

[Mizu]

Tonmo.com has several running threads on Cuttle and Octopus availability. kept pretty up to day including sources for eggs.

[LisaD]

Thanks Mizu, I haven't spent a lot of time on tonmo for a few years. It's time to get back into it...

[DHyslop]

Hi Lisa,

I've never ordered from Tom but have heard of him before. I thought I'd ask if that was where you got him because you mentioned him as a source upthread. I believe he's been having trouble finding octos this spring because of last year's hurricane season.

You don't happen to have any collectors in southern California, would you?

Dan

Originally posted by LisaD
Dan,

I work for a biological supply company that sells to schools and universities. Our collector in the Florida Keys knows I am a marine life geek, and he sent it to me as a present. It was a surprise, and a very pleasant one.

O. briareus is found in the same area, I believe. Does he sell a pygmy octopus as O. briareus? If so, maybe looking at his site is where I got it in my head that that was the species I had.

[cubano2480]

hey thanks a lot for the info if they are here in floridad I will collect one my self

thanks again .....

[LisaD]

Hi Lisa,

I've never ordered from Tom but have heard of him before. I thought I'd ask if that was where you got him because you mentioned him as a source upthread. I believe he's been having trouble finding octos this spring because of last year's hurricane season.

Dan,

My company has its own collector that does not sell retail, he just dropships marine organisms for our catalog customers. Octopus is not one of the animals we sell. He just happened to find one and sent it to me.

Tom is also in the Keys, he has been in business over 20 years. He has a professional operation, and does a good job. He has two beautiful collecting boats. The hurricanes last year messed up a lot of collecting sites. Many areas which have been sustainably collected for years are so changed, they aren't even the same habitat. Several organisms have gotten really hard to find, including dwarf seahorses, peppermint shrimp and small horseshoe crabs.

Hopefully this year won't have as active a hurricane season as last year and the collecting sites will recover. Tom is in Tavernier, which wasn't hit quite as bad as areas above it.

We don't have any collectors in southern California, but fishsupply.com (somewhere in CA) has a good reputation, and is probably the best source of WC bimacs. Of course a bimac is going to need a good sized tank, but I would think they's be one of the best pet octopus.

[DHyslop]

Thanks for the info about Tom, Lisa. I had no idea his operation was that big.

For the record, Fishsupply isn't selling WC bimacs (they have started selling mimics though...grrrr!). The only people that are selling them is Marine Depot, and they are in poor health and apparently not being shipped.

This might have something to do with the fact that under Section 8597(b)(2)(H) of the California Fish and Game Code bimacs are excluded from collection under a marine aquarium collector's permit.

They are legal to collect with a sport fishing license, however, and there's nothing to prevent someone from collecting as such and putting one in an aquarium. Selling it for the aquarium would be illegal, though. I'm considering travelling to San Diego to collect brood stock for myself.

Dan

[LisaD]

I didn't realize they could not be legally collected. It's too bad there isn't a reliable source of CB any more. Are you planning to be a future supplier? Good luck collecting some broodstock, bimacs are awesome animals.

[DHyslop]

I'm considering it. Its a question of scale, really. I can set up a couple nurseries made out of those low under-bed storage bins you find at the big box retailers and handle 50 or 60 subadults (presuming the other 450 or so are victims of cannibalism). The problem is I until I buy my own house I don't have the space for the eventual adults

It is--without question IMO--an attainable goal except it might have to wait a couple of years.

Dan

[LisaD]

I think what was on the market was subadults anyway, so you wouldn't keep young ones around long... I wonder how many breeders octopets had.

[DHyslop]

That is true. Octopets seemed to have the best luck shipping at about 8-10 weeks. The question is how many would I realistically be able to sell each year? The next question is how many would I want to sell given that most inquiries are invariably from people without the means to keep them.

Dan

[LisaD]

There might be a research market in addition to a hobby market. Can you do a survey on tonmo to find out how many would buy? Also, since fishsupply.com has a good reputation and is well known in the ceph community, maybe you could supply them wholesale rather than worrying about handling individual orders.

[DHyslop]

Researchers can always get theirs from the NRCC, wholesale to places like Fishsupply and the Doctors would probably be what I would end up doing. I think fishsupply's ceph reputation is going downhill though: the knowledgeable ceph person they used to have is no longer with them and they have started stocking mimics. Next thing you know they'll have moorish idols and nautilus.

Dan

[LisaD]

good point, I forgot about the mimics. I'll bet if you can reliably produce them, you can find a way. good luck! I'll buy one, sign me up!

[DHyslop]

Hehehe, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. Despite all the daydreaming I've been doing this is still a project that's at least a year off. Right now I don't have a basement to house the nurseries and the stock tanks.

Dan