How often do you feed your adult Bimac?

[CalvinC4S]

I have had my Bimac for over 3 months now and when I bought it it was an adult. Anyway, This thing is an eatting machine. It eats 3 times a day. Large crayfish and fiddler crabs. I just started to feed it medium sized gold fish, it loves them. It's mantel is now out of perportion to the rest of the body (reminds me of my aunt).

I guess the question is, will it shorten the life of the Octo if it
gets food any time it wants it? I know water quality is always an issue, but I have a very low bioload.

This thing is FAT. I will get some pictures

It inked last night too. First time ever that I have seen.
It was sucked up to the glass looking at me as I was up close looking at it. I scratched my nose and it jetted off expelling what looked to be a black cloud. I did a 30% water change and put a fresh bag of carbon in today-everything looks good!

 

[CalvinC4S]

Here is a picture of the fatso in action, she has about 15 ghost shrimp traped against the rock in this picture.

 

[Rudiger]

how big is he? Compare him to something. My bimac is only the size of a gumball.

 

[cephalopoder]

All octos are eating machines in general. The more you feed the faster they will grow. When they get to be full grown I use a 4" pvc elbow and the octo will fill it completely. The mantle will get about the size of a apple if you power feed them. The average size will be lemon/lime sized. Temperture will have more to do with extending life span than feeding them alot. If your keeping your bimac at a mid to low 70s temp then you will not extend their life by much by cutting down on the food.

 

[CalvinC4S]

Wow, as big as an apple, It has room to grow then. It's mantle
is a bit larger then a D cell battery.

 

[El-ahrairah]

Yeah the mantle can easily get to the size of an apple in the wild. I've seen couple of really big bimacs out on Catalina island. The marine reserve there (Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies) is chalked full of life - so there's no shortage of food.
-Michael

 

[cephalopoder]

Michael
Have you been able to tell easily tell apart O. bimaculoides and O.bimaculatus in the field?
I know bimaculatus gets alot bigger than bimaculoides. There are some distinguishing featues the each have. We had a hard time with O.hubsorum and O.mimus in the field the first few days in Costa Rica. Sexing is impossible until mature lol.
chris

 

[El-ahrairah]

I'm not all that good at identifying between the two, though if I manage to get hold of it I can usually (I'm pretty sure) identify it. Out of the few I've managed to get hold of, I know one was a bimaculoides and he was a good size, but your right some of the other big ones could have easily been bimaculatus.
-Michael

 

[Death Shrimp99]

the size of an apple isint that small for a bimac? i thought they get like 20 inches.

 

[OctoMonkey]

The body size (mantle) can be as big as an apple but 20" or so is the spread of the arms. Its just a slight confusion in measuring octopuses

C