Octopus in a 10g?

[mandrin13]

I was wondering,is it possible to keep an octopus in a ten gallon.My lfs has a ten gallon with a small dwarf in it.Is it okay to do that.Would I be able to?

[Brock Fluharty]

Most dwarves even need a 30 gallon. warves really don't make good pets, because they are usually nocturnal, so yu won't see them much, and they live even shorter life spans than regular octopuses, and are always WC. Being WC, they will probably only live another month or so after you get them. Octopuses produce 3 times that amount of watse as a fish that size, so a ten gallon is definately a no-no.

Brocktopus

[Gonodactylus]

You can keep a small species such as O. mercatoris, O. bocki, O. wolfi, etc, in a 10 gal that is well cycled and if you are very careful to remove uneaten food, etc. Frequent partial water changes also help.

One issue is whether you really have a pygmy species. Something like O. digueti or O. rubescens will get too large as will Abdopus aculeatus, a species that is commonly showing up from Indonesia and is sometimes sold as a dwarf.

I won't get into the suitability issues. It is true that most pygmies collected as adults will only live a couple of months more and most are secretive and nocturnal. However, that doesn mean that you can't watch them at night under dim illumination, train them to feed during the day, etc. They will never be highly interactive, but that suits some aquarists.

Roy

[Fini]

10 Gallons is really too small for any ceph. You should really consider 30+ gallons as the minimum for any octopus, dwarf or otherwise.

There are far too many factors with small tanks; chemistry, temperature and the confinement of an octopus should be enough good reasons to purchase a larger well cycled environment before you pick up an octopus.

For more information on octopus keeping please check out www.tonmo.com.

[Gonodactylus]

Fini,

Ideally, all octopus should be kept in an aquarium of immense size - say the ocean. The problem here is considering all octopuses as the same. Biomass, life stiyle, diet and activity all should be considered. While most species should be in a system as large and stable as possible, there are pygmies that do quite well in small systems. These are generally small, cavitiy or crevice oriented species such as O. bocki, O. mercatoris, O. wolfi. etc. They rarely leave their homes, so the psychological factor is minimal, they eat about .5 grams of food a day and they typically do not weigh more than 5-20 grams. A well run in 10 gal. system maintained properly and at a stable temperature is more than adequate for such an animal. In fact, our research tanks are smaller and we have no problem keeping a variety of pygmy species or juvenile individuals of larger species. In my experience, it is far more important that the aquarium be well established and stable than what size it is. Obviously I would not stuff a 2 kg O. cyanea into a 10 gal tank, but a pygmy into a stable 10 gal, not to worry.

Roy

[mandrin13]

Thanks on the info.Reading this if decided a dwarf is not for me.Ill probably just go with a mantis shrimp in the ten.Thanks.

[JDrex]

not a good idea...hard to keep water quality high and will undoubtedly lead to a shorter life for you friend