Originally Posted by
octopus8
http:///forum/post/2739619
Hello all,
I am wanting a new smaller breed of octopus ( i love them)! I am going to use my old sump and convert it to a octopus only tank. It is an 18 tall, am I am going to use a cansister filter and seal the top and use lots of lr. I was wondering if any one had any ideas of breed, or anything else that might be useful info? Maybe use of filter and protein skimmer or anything?
An 18 gallon tank is not ideal for any kind of octopus. Not even a dwarf. 30 gallon minimum would be a good suggestion for a dwarf. And a tall tank as opposed to a long tank wouldn't be that ideal either, they like to have a lot of surface area to run around on, so height isn't that important to them. If you are serious about keeping an octopus, get a 55 gallon tank or larger you can dedicate strictly to the octopus alone. Get a skimmer that is rated for 3x the size of the tank (150 gallons), and buy lots of duct tape to make sure those gaps are sealed everywhere around the top of the tank. A larger species will be much more rewarding, and hey, you already have a sump for it. If you're going to keep an octopus, do it right.
For a smaller tank O. mercatoris would be your best candidate. They unfortunately lack the key characteristics that make people want to keep octopuses. They are..
A) Extremely nocturnal. Will never come out when there is light on. Have to be viewed late at night, with a red light, and usually don't come out for long. Just long enough to hunt, eat, and go back to their den. And watching them eat is not entertaining. Hunting, yes, quite impressive, but eating... BORING!
B) Never interactive. They will never play with you. They will run and hide when they realize you are watching them.
C) Lack any kind of complex camouflage. They stay red 99% of the time, might turn black when angry, white when scared.
D) Don't accept dead foods easily, if ever. And since they don't interact with you, training them to accept dead foods will prove difficult, if not impossible.
E) Only live an average of 8 months. That doesn't mean you get to keep them for 8 months. That means they will live a maximum of 8 months from the moment they hatch. As for when you buy one, well, it might be 6 weeks old. It might be 6 months old.
On the plus side, they can be bred relatively easily, and they tolerate the presence of others of their own species, unlike most other octopus species which are solitary creatures. People have had limited luck getting offspring to be more acceptable of the keepers presence than their wild-caught predecessors.
If you are serious about keeping an octopus, please visit TONMO. Everything you could ever want to know about keeping an octopus or cuttlefish. Good, relevant, factual information from experienced people. Probably a collective experience of over 60 years between all of the senior members.
