Captive raised. :) YEAY!

[DrMilhouse]

Well, stopping in to the LFS the other day, I ended up getting my first octo. I had an old seahorse tank that I lost all the live stock in. It's extremely small, but so is the octo for now. He'd get lost in anything too much bigger. The tank is a 7.5 bowfront (that's temporary, I already have a 60, but I haven't set it up yet. Anyway, I kept the old seahorse tank going

You can see some pics of the tank here: click me (http://www.fbody.com/members/drmilhouse/horses/index.html)

I lost the seahorses because my previous home did not have A/C and it got too warm for them one day. New place has A/C and is much cooler, I'm still going to place a fan over the top a little differently this time to keep it even cooler.

At the LFS I saw this little octo and 4 of his siblings in there so I had to get one, impulse buy, I know... but I had the tank ready for them anyway, it's been going with plants and crabs and shrimp for months and months. I haven't seen it too much since I put it in the tank yesterday, but hopefully it will get over being shy once it gets hungry. It was already eating crabs. I actually interuppted dinner when I bought it.

I'll get pics when he becomes less shy. How long should I leave it alone before I start getting concerned about if it's in there or not? (The top is not perfectly sealed).

:eek: :mixed:

[DrMilhouse]

Oh yeah... another thing.. Anyone disagree that these would actually be captive raised? I figure someone would be doing this but I figured if anyone had a system going for that, it would be one of you guys. BTW, just in case anyone was wondering: $34.95
:)

[XxAngelzDustxX]

I really really reallyyyyyyy like your tank!

It looks different I haven't seen another like it on RC, very creative! Get some pix of the new guy, I wanna see :D

[XxAngelzDustxX]

Sorry for the loss of your horses :(

Good luck with the octo.

[ChasingPuck]

I haven't heard of anyone successfully tank raising octos. They will happily lay eggs, but the young are very difficult to feed--they are planktonic, and can only eat very small things, like diatoms and such. The first octo I had laid eggs, and they did hatch, but none of the babies survived. This was in a year old reef system--lots of good copo production, minimal algaes, etc. I'd be thrilled if someone can do so successfully--and even happier if they can gaurantee males or virgin females.

[OctoMonkey]

you came to the right place then :)

Chris (cephalopoder) has done a very good job of his captive raised octopuses, that also includes mating an adult pair and not just a female who was already gravid :)

[cephalopoder]

So far I have been able to rear to O.mercatoris from egg to adult. This past season I captive breed a male and female O bimaculoides. I have reared the hatchlings and they are now 4 months old and ready for homes. Lots of fun, and lots of hard work.
Some pics of it all in previous threads.
Wait till you see whats next hehehehe.
Hows the store comming Colin?
chris

[wthorpe]

re: the question of whether the octopus could be tank-raised, i've seen aquacultured bimacs on liveaquaria.com... $40, i believe.

[cephalopoder]

That is actually funny. liveaquaria lists O.bimaculatus and other species aquacultured. LMAO
O.bimaculatus is a small egg octopus that hatches into planktonic young.
Not really practical or possible to rear and still make any sort of money.
I would question any thing they sell when they can't even name their aquacultured species correctly. O.bimaculoides is the only species that has ever been captive reared for the trade. I know the guy that rears them in CA and a few stores offer them. It is sad when a store is selling captive reared octopuses and they can't even get the correct species name. That kind of defeats the purpose in my eyes. I also wonder if that listing will change when they run out , or will they try to pass off any octo they get in as captive reared O.bimaculatus?. Some things to think about.