cuttle/octo question

[jamest0o0]

Hey everyone, I'm thinking of getting back into the hobby and keeping cephs has really appealed to me. I've done a ton of research on them in the past, but I will need to go back over some things because it's been years since I've had a SW tank. I was wondering what your opinions on the maintenance time of keeping cuttles/octos is compared to reefs and whatever else. I will probably only be able to have a 40g tank or lower. Can anyone start me off with some good info or links to see if this would be for me or not. I remember about 6-8 years ago when I was keeping tanks it didn't seem like many people had cephs, has anything changed? Things gotten easier/harder/etc?

thanks

 

[flamingdragon]

https://www.tonmo.com

a website dedicated to octo

http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/octokeep.php

 

[gordonj1]

I have about 25 octopuses (various species) in my lab. One thing that I have noticed is the shear volume of water changes that we are doing to maintain these guys. I'm doing 50% water changes at least 4 times a week sometimes more often depending on how much they eat/ how many crab legs I miss when cleaning out the carcasses lol.

So, my advice is to be prepared to do major water changes even in large volumes. They are ammonia machines.

Additionally, they need live foods for the first couple of weeks. They will eventually see you as a source of food and be willing to take frozen foods from your hand. Focus on getting live crabs. Sometimes they will eat hermit crabs, but in a pinch. When you move to frozen, you still need to provide live foods occasionally for enrichment. Frozen raw shrimp works well. We use a combination of imported shrimp and tiger prawns. For live crabs, we catch them or hit up the bait shops.