major droolidge!!! wow they are so cool!!! want one

That looks wicked mystic

in my experience judging by the color mystic that is one angry or stressed occie

pale colouration is worried , camouflaged is you can't see me

after awhile and settled down they may put on a light show for you, red with white rings moving up and down the tentacles

an occie that is happy in its tank won't try climbing out, that is why it is best to get young individuals and grow them on

when really small they spend a lot of time hiding, i find a lot in beer bottles in the habour

they learn quickly and come for food

i used to tap my fingernails on the front of the tank to let one know it was food time

we were sitting in front of the tank having dinner a few months later

and i could hear a tapping noise coming from the tank

the occie was tapping 2 stones together to tell me to feed it

dwarf Octopus that is so cool. Time to go reread that marine guide by Carly.

Have just checked in an Octopus book. There are several 'dwarf' Octopus species in New Zealand, of which a couple should be in range of collectors Octopus gibbsi is found on rocky ground in 0 to 40m depth on the northeastern coast of the North island and grows to about 67cm in length (body+head+arms) so not quite a dwarf but still fairly small; Octopus kaharoa is found as shallow as 7m on the east coast of the north and south island from the Poor Knights Isl to Kaikoura and only grows to 39 cm in length and has long slender arms; and Octopus huttoni is found from 0 to 400m around New Zealand and only grows to 23 cm in length. At that sort of size you could maybe keep a couple in a large tank as adults.

We were given a small one once by a fisherman who found it in one of his nets. It was white and only about 10cm from centre to tentacle tips. We had a cold water rockpool marine set up and put it in there but hardly ever saw it as it spent most of its time buried in the sand. You could only spot it when it blinked

Unfortunately it escaped one night and in the morning we found it a bit dried out and fluffed to death on the carpet.

i often wonder why such highly intelligent creatures are kept in relatively small tanks... IMO Mystic, the size of that octopus relative to the tank size just looks cruel?

could you stick up a pic of your occy tank mystic? i love seeing marine tanks

how many tanks do you have?

The two octopus have settled in well but only show themselves in the evenings.

The tank is in the lounge and they come out from under their rocks even with the lounge lights on.

I think the two brittle stars which came with them may have been devoured as they have not been seen after the first day or two.

I feed them small pieces of mussel and live crabs. They make short work of quite large crabs.

They seem to be getting a little more tame each day.

I have taken some pics but still have not mastered the posting of them on this forum.

If I could impose on someone to post for me that would be great, PM your email.

Cheers

WEKA

Thats great to hear WEKA - I was wondering how they were getting on. The kids would love to see photos I'm sure!

If no-one has helped you with the pics, I can do them for you after work tonight!

Thanks Hazara

Mystic has offered to post the pics for me.

I have included a couple of pics of my 600L cold saltwater which I have just set up again with the background now coated with resin and sand. Still a bit murky as only done yesterday. Temperature is up a bit as I am running on my backup cooling system while I add a water cooled condensor to the fridge unit.

Thanks Mystic

umm, octy's very cool, but not the plastic plants :oops:

Thanks for that Mystic.

Hey it's saltwater puttputt what else can i use?

What lights you got?

I have several very nice seaweeds growing at the mo, some are quite hardy?

Also, you may want to consider taking the rocks on the floor out, being freshwater substrate, they may leach in salt water and replace with sand or crushed shell.

occy is looking good

can you get hold of some live rock?

just a shallow bed of sand as occys can dig in a deep sand bed

beer bottle for occys to live in

Any chance of some pics of your seaweed so I know what to look for puttputt.

These tanks are being set up for seahorses so octys are temp residents - not good flatmates

local or tropical horses?

Local H. abdominalis

Any chance of some pics of your seaweed so I know what to look for puttputt.

Yeah no worries weka, will post some up. What lights are you running t5s or T8s.

In the 900mm high hex I only have a 300dia 32w/865 2310lm cool daylight tube.

My 600L has two or four 5ft T8 tubes with a mix of two colours. One will be daylight not sure what the other is.

Any update at all there WEKA, Do you still have them? My 5 year old was asking about them the other day, he loved having them around and just got a book from the library about octo's!

have you tested the occy's psychic sports betting abilities yet?

Hi Hazara

Unfortunately they both died last month. They were both doing fine and had grown quite a bit up until the beginning of June. The smaller of the two was looking a bit odd before I had a three day trip to Auckland.

I left them a few crabs to eat but when I returned the smaller one was dead and the big one was very sick and died the next day. I have no idea what the problem was unless they were a small variety and died of old age.

The crabs are still running around and all the water tests looked fine. I have a number of pics but are not up to speed with posting them yet. Cheers.

That's a shame, but yeah they definately have short lifespans from what I have read... that's another reason I dont really want them as pest..

Were they very active, did you see much of them?