Help with an ID please!

[davelin315]

Rescued this octopus from a dinner plate yesterday from an Asian Food Market tank... There might have been one other living octopus in there, but this guy was crawling around the tank while others were dead in there and with my softspot for octopuses, I couldn't help myself. It's currently in a 10 gallon tank as that's the best I could throw together with cold water and an ice probe to keep it cool. My guess is that it's from the West Coast as it was in with abalone and I think that they are collected in California waters, but no idea. The ones where it's just sitting there are from when the lights were on, the ones where it's stretched out are from when it was dark and I turned on the lights.

 

[davelin315]

 

[davelin315]

 

[davelin315]

Sorry, didn't resize the pictures (my club's forum has an auto-resizing function).

 

[Mustang Boy]

thats a good looking octopus and i have no expertise in the area of keeping octopus but i do know you should look into a larger setup for him.

 

[davelin315]

thats a good looking octopus and i have no expertise in the area of keeping octopus but i do know you should look into a larger setup for him.

Absolutely, but before I do that I need to know what kind it is. That'll have a lot of leverage on what kind of tank it ends up in as I'll need to figure out what to do with it (e.g. chiller, ultimate size, etc.).

 

[Mustang Boy]

yea true that makes alot of sense. i hope you get an ID soon because i cant wait to see pics of him exploring a new home

 

[K.Bodno]

You found him in a restraunt?!? Thats the craziest thing Ive ever heard

 

[davelin315]

You found him in a restraunt?!? Thats the craziest thing Ive ever heard

Nope, in the live food department at one of the Asian Food Markets near me. They had a few of them in a tank with live abalone but this guy and perhaps one other were the only ones alive, the others were all dead so I took this one. Wasn't sure if the other one was alive or not but I figured I couldn't possibly house 2 of them and backed off of trying to find out if the other one was alive still.

 

[Octoshark]

I sent you a PM.

 

[billabong08]

AWSOME FIND!
How much did it run you?

BTW you should probably put quite a-bit of weight on the lid to the tank. I have heard they are pretty strong and push lids off easily.

 

[davelin315]

AWSOME FIND!
How much did it run you?

BTW you should probably put quite a-bit of weight on the lid to the tank. I have heard they are pretty strong and push lids off easily.

Unfortunately, not a whole lot. It was $16.99 which is why they are so easy to buy as food. Wish that all fish and inverts cost so little!

 

[bradleym]

Since you haven't gotten much in the way of ID, I'm gonna jump in here. The Mercatoris has been commented on as commonly displaying the "boxing pose" as shown in your pic below. However I do not and have not owned any octopi so this should not be considered an expert ID. Your best bet is to post this ID request at www.tonmo.com. This is pretty much what they do. :thumbsup:

 

[content12001]

kudos to you for saving him tho. Too bad they are so inexpensive at those markets, maybe if were more, would not be as much of a market for them, right?