Living room too busy for octo?

[Wakeaholic]

Today I finally moved into my new condo and will be staying here until I graduate. This also means I moved my 40g tank today and my 20g sump (wow, a little harder than I thought, and messy). This also means I feel comfortable keeping an octo since my tank has been up for 4 1/2 months and has been doing great. I know that my setup is ok for an octo as far as filtration and size but I was wondering about the placement. I have it adjacent to the living room and kitchen. I know octos like peace and quiet but this was the only place I could put it. It is only a two bedroom condo so there is normally not alot of traffic. My only concern is if I have a party will the octo freak out? Should I just cover the tank with a sheet? Also, I think I'm going to wait a couple more months so things get stabilized and in the interim I think I'm going to get a fish to kind of prepare my tank for the added bioload of an octo. I'll get rid of him in when it's time for the my octo since he'll get eaten. Just let me know! Thanks!

 

[chepvegas]

Thats where I keep my bimac. The guy loves it he watches tv any time or me and my roommates playing video games.

 

[Wakeaholic]

Thanks! Does he seem to be bothered if there are alot of people around?

 

[chepvegas]

Nah, it likes people.

 

[Energy]

I would have to agree they definately like to check things out! I think it would be better to have them someplace where stuff is happening than in a quite corner. Every Octo of mine loved people watching as much as I do. They are intelligent enough to need the stimuli that some activity provides. On the other hand don't allow people to intentionally freak him out (tap on glass, make sudden movements towards it while it is out)since you will wind up with an ink cloud.

 

[yoink326]

Dude, trust me. When you have a party, you will want to show him off!

Never had an octo, but sounds cool!

 

[Wakeaholic]

Thanks Guys! All I have to do is get maybe a couple more pieces of rock and wait a little bit. Where do you think the best place for rock is? I've been buying from my LFS but it's not all that great. Thanks!

 

[Malofish]

when my octo(blue ring, don't need the static) see's my red B.C. Rich Warlock guitar it knows that people r coming over and starts to almost clean house!! It will pick up shells and rocks and stack them in front of it's hole!!! It will walk around the front of the tank almost like if it's getting a closer look at all the people : ) P.S. loves to see me practice

 

[ezhoops]

what about a junior high class room? Too busy for an Octo? I'm just so worried that some jerky kid would do something or put something into the tank. not to mention knock on the glass or annoy the octo (heck they annoy me all day)
thoughts.....?

 

[MagnusApollo]

A friend of mine is a teacher and I had helped build a structure that actually fit around the 75 gallon tank he was keeping in his classroom (wasn't an octo in there though).
Just picture a large 4 sided structure (left side, right side, top and front) with the front of the wood cut so the tank was veiwable. What my idea was, to have a structure you nailed to the wall. (2x4 beams) then we added hinges to the one side and small castors to the bottom.. so the entire box would actually swing out away from the tank. So it was veiwable fromthe front, andkept the kids from putting things in there. It worked well for about 2 years... until sometime when the class was empty someone came in broke the wood and poured something in there. don't know what.. but it killed off the entire tank in less than 12 hours... the next day when he found the tank things were sick we moved them to hospital tanks at everyone home.. a couple of the fish survived (the hardy fish at least) but everything else died... lost the entire tank. I can't get over how stupid kids are. (they never caught the person(s)... they think they know the couple kids that did it.. but thanks to the new laws... they couldn't do anything unless they had hard proof... I hate how we protect all the bad people now)
Not to end on a bad note... but the box did work well until someone took a hammer to get inside of it. something you might want to think about.. though it doesn't stop them from tapping on the glass...

Though, a thought is that if you add a piece of plexiglass on the front of the "box" (just glue it to the inside of the front to cover the hole), the kids wouldn't even be able to get to the glass!

 

[ezhoops]

sorry, to hear that, but that is my exact fear. I'll kept the ceph's at home. I have a pair of GSM clowns in my classroom now and I worry about them. Kids don't understand the time and effort not to mention the money involved that goes into a successful reef tank. It can all be ended with some stupid kid dropping a penny into the tank to make a wish. Sad, very sad. That's why I only keep clowns in my class room tanks, I lose sleep worrying about them, if I had an octo I would have to sleep in my classroom.

P.s. do you know of where I could buy a baby bi mac. looking for a excellent breeder with top quality animals.

Thanks

 

[MagnusApollo]

yeah, I would be the same way. all the fish in his tank were the cheap and some of them were from a friends breeding clown tank. He still was upset of their loss, but at least it wasn't something rare or a really big creature in the tank. He would have been devistated. It was bad enough with the good kids... they were all upset. we swear if they had little pitchforks and torches there would have been a half-pint lynch mob...

I am actually looking for a good baby bi-mac as well.. so if you do find a breeder let me know!

 

[ezhoops]

there is someone who knows of one on one of the ceph's websites, it could be tono (sp?) but he is a good breeder and has a great reputation. I'll keep my ears and eyes open.

 

[MagnusApollo]

thanks man!