Bimac food?

Kevomac

Kevomac

New member
As I posted two days ago, I just got a bimac. She refused to eat two days ago when I first put her in the tank (my wife said she thinks the octo is a she, can't explain why, but we named her Doris). I currently have some food soaking in Zoecon as I am typing, includign a piece of white shrimp (which she refused two days ago, but which my previous octo loved) one stone crab claw. My question is this, how often do you feed your octos? What do you feed them? Should I be soaking the food in Zoecon?
 
Ok, had to change plans just now. Called the grocery store on a hunch and found out that the stone crab claw is precooked. Does that mean that its not safe to feed to Doris, or just that its not as healthy for her? What about feeding live crawfish? I've always heard that its not a good idea to feed freshwater animals to SW critters, but I've also heard that octos love them. I will try giving her the shrimp for now (I know its raw) and wait for an answer before giving her the crab claw. Oh well, at least I only wasted 28 cents on it if I can't use it.
 
You probably want fresh only, my bimac is about 2 months old now and it eats every day if I let him. To see how much he could eat If i let him,I went to R.I. water about 10 degrees warmer and got, snails, hermit crabs and regular crabs and 5 muscles. The first snail to hit the sand lasted 1 second, the next morning 2 crab shells. In 9 days he has eaten 5 crabs very tiny to larger than him. 14 hermit crab, carnivourous fast kind and about 10 snails. The only thing left is one muscle and about 5 snails. i.e. he eats alot. I have found he is very inteligent, if he is bored and out and I dont play with him he will ignore me for a couple days. If I play he will go for quite awhile, he loves to be filmed, when I feed him he 95% of the time goes into his cave to finish his prey, but it is awesome to watch him engulf them. HTH
Chris
 
Feeding crayfish are fine. I have used them for years and never a problem. Just make sure they come from clean healthy fresh water. I alternate food from week to week with every octo. Only fresh food should be given. Cooked is bad. As for a zoecon.. I tried selcon a few times and my octos would taked it and spit it right back at me lol. They don't seem to care for it too much. My latest bimac, waites onn the glass to be fed every morning. I feed one piece of thawed frozen shrimp in the morning, and alternate between crayfish, clams, snails, and hermits I catch in the ocean.
chris
 
Well, that explains things. I fed mine a piece of shrimp that had been soaked in Zoecon just now. She took it, picked at it, wrestled with a green serpent star over it (I wondered why she didn't just take and swim away), and then let the star have it. I'll try some later that hasn't been soaked. I may also pick up some crayfish. I know a place locally that carries them. It should be interesting to see her attack it. Should I snap off the crayfish claws first for her protection? Also, what about catching live crayfish myself? There are creeks around that may have some. Just a thought! Thanks for all of your input!
 
Dont worry about the claws. It is amzing to watch the way they overpower a crab or similar without getting nabbed by a claw...

I know that some species of crayfish are protected in some areas, dunno if that counts where you are tho :)

Colin
 
crayfish chow

crayfish chow

One of the cooler thing you will watch is an octo take control of a much bigger crayfish. The way I describe it is two arms take control of each claw, and it has 6 other arms to do with it what it wants. Pretty neato. It simply put it's tentacles over the claws and makes them useless. The whole struggle may last a second or two. Good luck on your feeding.
Bill
 
What is the size ratio that is safe for the octopus? Can the prey be the same size or bigger than the octopus? I have been wanting to feed my octo something larger, but have hesitated to do so. I thought the crawfish sounded interesting, and they are readily available live where I live.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com
 
crayfish chowder

crayfish chowder

I have fed mine crayfish that are about twice the size of him and it was not much of a challange. The only way I can see it would pose problems for him is if the crayfish backed into some rocks. feed away...
 
Do you mean to say that you guys are feeding the octo FRESH WATER items - like crayfish? Does this mean I could get food for an octo from a local fresh water lake? How about minnows? I'm not sure they'd last too long in the salt water, but they sure are cheap!
 
Fresh water crayfish havre a different nutritional value than fresh water fish. Never feed a ceph fresh water fish as a main part of a diet. Cray fish work good but I do supplement them with other foods as well. Collecting your own food is fine as long as the water they come from are not contaminated.
chris
 
Octoplay?

Octoplay?

Ok, my bimac comes tomorrow morning (yes!), and I am trying to get ready. I have some extra snails already in the tank (I have an infestation of carniverous oyster drills in my reef... at least they should make good octo food...), and I am planning on some live ghost shrimp on Wednesday. I often see you guys talking about hermits. Doesn't that get rather expensive? Or do you live near enough to the ocean to collect your own?

One other question: NHreefer talked about his octo getting ticked off if he didn't "play with it"! What the heck constitutes playing with an octo? Do you have some sort of "game" you play? Do you put your hands in the water? Also, I know they have beaks. Do they ever bite? I know these must sound like dumb questions to you experts, but this is my first ceph, and I am anxious to learn. Thanks,

Jim
 
To me playing with him, means just standing there and spending time in front of the tank. If he's out and I walk by and don't stop, he squirts me. If he's out and I stand and watch he moves all around, changes colors, just kinda goofs off. But if I don't pay any attention to him he seems to get real "mad". Yes I live near the ocean and just go down pick up hermits, almost every rock you turn over has a regular crab in it, they have more meat.
HTH
Chris
 
How does he "squirt" you? Is the top of your tank open???

Also, what do those of us do who don't live near an ocean (like me, in Minnesota)? How long can you stock up food? The fish store is 45 minutes away, so I can usually only go there every month or so.
 
Hi Alligator

I have a small 18" cube tank, with 1/2 dozen bits of live rock, some air stones and a small fluval filter in it. In there I have kept shore crabs and rock pool shrimps alive for months at a time. I just feed them on a mix of whitebait and flake food. They seem to do fine! Sometimes get the odd bit of cannabalism when one sheds its skin to grow, but mostly it is okay!

So by seeting up a small tank, which was originally part of my sump, I could keep live food indeffinetly. In fact right now, I dont have any cephs at home, only their food :(

Colin
 
Ok here is my situation. I have a 5 gallon bucket with a cheap filter on it that houses twenty ghost shrimp. In the sump for my octopus tank lives twenty red leg hermit crabs. For you guys who dont live near the ocean call up your fish store and ask if they can order ghost shrimp or red leg (or blue leg) hermit crabs. The hermit crabs are about the size of a large peanut M&M so they might be too small if you have a bigger octopus, but mine is only a baby so he loves them. The shrimps are $0.50 and the crabs are $1 at my LFS.

Every day I feed the octopus one ghost shrimp. I hold the ghost shrimp with chopsticks and hold it five inches from the octopus. At first I would have to stick it right in his face so he could taste the shrimp because he was nervous about the chopsticks, but that fear only lasted two days. Now he comes shooting out and grabs it and at the same time plays a game of tug-o-war. He is so strong. When he finally lets go of the chop sticks he munches away at the shrimp. I usually feed the ghost shrimp to him in the early afternoon and then in the evening I feed him a hermit crab. He loves the hermit crabs much more that the shrimp.

The octopus is only the size of a gumball, does anyone think I am feeding him too much? There really isnt that much meat in the ghost shrimp, so I dont think I am spoiling him.

pat
 
Ok, this is related to all the food questions in here. I also dropped off a lot of crabs in my tank, which my octo finished off very quickly. My question is how to handle the amount of chemical spikes in your tank form large chunks of dead crab, etc. floating around. I did a water change just in case, but all the debris had me worried. I have two sand-sifting stars, two filtering cucumbers, and about 7 astrea snails for a clean up crew in my 135 gallon. Shouild I get more starfish and the like to compensate?

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com
 
Rudiger,

Octopuses grow at a very high rate, and are one of the more efficient animals in converting protein to body mass. I would say you actually aren't feeding your octopus enough. Your bimac has an average lipespan of about a year and in that time will go from weighing a little less than a gram at hatching, to over 500g in weight. With a well fed octopus you should be seeing a noticable increase in size every week. This is not to say that you need to increase his feeding, I just wouldn't worry about feeding him too much. The only area of concern with feeding too much is if your tank can handle the waste produced by your octopus, since they tend to be messy and produce a lot of ammonia from all the protein they are metabolizing. As long as he is healthy you are feeding him enough, he just can eat a lot more than you would normally expect.
-Michael
 
It took me a few days to figure out how much to feed. I started out feeding an entire frozen (grocery store) shrimp. He left 3/4 uneaten. Needless to say the next morning I had a HUGE ammonia spike. I did a big water change and cut the feeding to 1/2 a shrimp. He left probably 1/2 of that. So the next day I cut it to 1/4 and it looked like he finished it off. I did notice that he likes to hide pieces of it in the holes in his rock, I guess for later:confused: After the first day I feed in the morning and take out the leftovers (if i can find any) that night. Mine octo is tiny though, about 1" from inflated head(?) to where the tentacles start. Maybe the size of a jar lid from arm tip to arm tip. My biofilter finally caught up after a couple of days and can now handle the leftover mess. HTH:)
laura
ps I also throw in a ghost shrimp or two per day so he can hunt. Still learning though. Gonna try snails next.
 
How much do you guys estimate you spend on octo food?

What do you feed the shrimp or hermits while they are waiting to be eaten?
 
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