Southern California Octopus Biotope

[C-Rad]

I wanted to catch and keep a California Two-Spot octopus (O. Bimaculoides) often called a "Bimac". This is my first marine tank, but I did lots of homework before I set it up and got my octopus, and it's been running for two years with no problems. Bimacs can live about two years under ideal condition (give or take 6 months) and I'm on my second one now.

 

I keep the tank at 60 degrees F, and everything was designed to keep heat out of the tank so that the chiller wouldn't need to work too hard. The tank is a 70 gallon glass all-in-one, with a glass partition (overflow wall) installed 6 inches from the left side, creating a 10 gallon section containing 6 gallons of bio balls (wet/dry) and an aqua-C Urchin skimmer (sump version of the Remora). The tank is insulated with 3" Styrofoam on the bottom, back, and one side, and has double paned glass on the front and one side. I run only one pump which feeds the skimmer, the 1/4 HP chiller, and acts as a return pump. It is an external pump, which is air cooled, and so adds a minimum of heat to the water.

 

 

Now for the eye candy...

 

Here's a full tank shot

 

 

This is Lefty, along with the shells of some scallops and muscles I collect, that have some strawberry anemones growing on them.

 

 

Octopus can change color, (and texture) dramatically. Sometimes the blue false-eye spots are barely visible, but other times, like in this picture, they are striking.

 

 

Here is a bat star, and some of the strawberry anemones which have moved off of the scallop shell they came in on and attached to the rock.

 

 

This shows one of the two gorgonians I have. The other one is golden colored, while this one is white.

 

 

Here's a closeup showing the polyps on the golden gorgonian that it uses to catch the rotifers and/or cyclopeeze that I feed the tank.

 

 

Lefty laid eggs (infertile) brooded them for about five months, and then died, which is the normal life cycle for a Bimac. Here's a shot of my current octopus "Spot" (I know). I wanted Spot to have more room to move around the tank without having to worry about bumping into a stinging anemone, so I attached the scallop shells to ceramic tiles and put them on the back wall.

 

 

Spot gets his (her?) closeup

[jeremai]

wow, incredible tank. not really a cephalopod fan, but the gorgonians are amazing.

[pismo_reefer]

i likey.

[horusmachine]

Wow nice tank. I used to keep Bimacs myself and I found them quite the characters. So where did you get your livestock if I might ask?

 

Horus

[lakshwadeep]

Very nice! What do you feed all the gorgonians?

[Kraylen]

siiiiccckkkk!!!!

[Tigahboy]

Awesome strawberry nems.

[AdriftQuasar]

It's a shame cephalopods are so short-lived. They're amazing! Have you thought at all about a breeding attempt?

[Jamie]

where.... did you get the gorgonians? drooool.

 

(that, and what do you feed them, how fast to they grow, etc, etc)

 

beautiful tank.

[Exhale]

Super nice tank, KUDOS

[The_Yellow_Pony]

Love it!

 

What security measures do you use to keep your slippery cephalopod captive?

 

I love them but the better half is not a fan of finding tentacles in the bed.....

[Lalani]

Umm, wow!

[Urchinhead]

wow!

[moto826]

nice i need a cold water bad I'm going to sell coral and set up a cold water looks cooler

[Kimberly63]

Wow stunning!

 

I'd love to see larger pics.

[C-Rad]

Very nice! What do you feed all the gorgonians?

I feed frozen rotifers to the gorgonians, and frozen cyclops to the strawberry anemone. There's a guy with a tank FULL of strawberry anemone in New Zealand who says they thrive on flake food that's been made super tiny in a blender. I think I'll try that, just to mix up their diet, and because it sounds easy. I might also take a plankton net down to the ocean and catch some live food once in a while to mix things up.

 

 

It's a shame cephalopods are so short-lived. They're amazing! Have you thought at all about a breeding attempt?

My octopus was wild caught, and she laid eggs back in January, so I looked into what it would take to raise babies. The eggs were infertile, but I learned that if I can supply very tiny live food of the right size, and keep the babies away from predators (like the strawberry anemone) then it wouldn't be that hard. O. Bimaculoides (like mine) lay "large" eggs (1/8" x 3/4") so the babies aren't planktonic. The almost indistinguishable O. Bimaculatus lays small eggs, which are considered extremely difficult to rear.

 

 

where.... did you get the gorgonians? drooool.

(that, and what do you feed them, how fast to they grow, etc, etc)

I strapped on a scuba tank and peeled them off of a rock, then used super glue to fix them onto my rock. It's not legal to take them from the intertidal zone (within 1000 feet of shore) but they are easy to find in shallow rocky areas farther off shore.

They grow slowly. I've recently increased my feeding a lot, so maybe I'll see more noticeable growth.

 

 

What security measures do you use to keep your slippery cephalopod captive?

I love them but the better half is not a fan of finding tentacles in the bed.....

My wife told me, reluctantly, that I could get an octopus, but that the first time she found a dead octopus behind the couch my hobby would be over. So I designed and built a totally escape proof acrylic top with hinges and a latch, and bolted it onto the plastic rim of my tank. It has worked perfectly, and my wife decided she really likes the octopus. I wrote it up and posted some pictures on www.tonmo.com which is the only site dedicated to octopus keeping. Octopus proof (and idiot proof) tank lid

[lakshwadeep]

You might try hosting your pics on photobucket and putting the "IMG code" here.

[Obi Juan kenobi]

Very nice tank

[C-Rad]

I went out at low tide to La Jolla (in San Diego) on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon for the -1.35 ft low tides to see what I could see. I found four octopus each day. Twice I looked under a rock, grabbed at an octopus, and came up with two octopuses! They must have been mating (I'm such a buzz kill)

 

Here are some pictures of one of them. I tipped a small rock up on edge and this smart old octopus was almost invisible. He (probably she) made himself very flat, and donned a color and pattern that looked just like the surrounding sand. I stared at the small patch of sand under the rock for about ten seconds before I made out his outline. I grabbed him and as I was pulling him from the water he shot me in the face with ink (that was a first)

 

 

I already have a bimac in my tank at home, so I played show and tell with my nephews and whoever else was down there at the time and then let the octopuses go.

 

All the usual suspects were there too, sea stars, nudibranchs, sea hares, fish, anemone, kelp crabs, shrimp, etc. The next two months have lots of really low tides during daylight hours (at least on the US pacific coast), so now is a great time to collect critters for your tanks, or to just look around.

[cheryl jordan]

I went out at low tide to La Jolla (in San Diego) on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon for the -1.35 ft low tides to see what I could see. I found four octopus each day. Twice I looked under a rock, grabbed at an octopus, and came up with two octopuses! They must have been mating (I'm such a buzz kill)

 

Here are some pictures of one of them. I tipped a small rock up on edge and this smart old octopus was almost invisible. He (probably she) made himself very flat, and donned a color and pattern that looked just like the surrounding sand. I stared at the small patch of sand under the rock for about ten seconds before I made out his outline. I grabbed him and as I was pulling him from the water he shot me in the face with ink (that was a first)

 

 

I already have a bimac in my tank at home, so I played show and tell with my nephews and whoever else was down there at the time and then let the octopuses go.

 

All the usual suspects were there too, sea stars, nudibranchs, sea hares, fish, anemone, kelp crabs, shrimp, etc. The next two months have lots of really low tides during daylight hours (at least on the US pacific coast), so now is a great time to collect critters for your tanks, or to just look around.

Love your tank. The way I would get baby octo, was to set up places under the docks in Newport Beach, Ca. As soon as egg laying season came I would dive down and grab a couple of babies. I wanted babies because of the short life span. They were pretty easy to raise, but I found myself huntng the docks for live foods for them. I used flower posts, PVC pipe but the most popular to the octo were the road cones. If I never went out of town I would do it again, but raising baby octo is a everyday job. Once again very nice tank, and could let me know what temp you are keeping them at.

[Weetabix7]

Very, very nice.

[C-Rad]

Love your tank. The way I would get baby octo, was to set up places under the docks in Newport Beach, Ca. As soon as egg laying season came I would dive down and grab a couple of babies. I wanted babies because of the short life span. They were pretty easy to raise, but I found myself huntng the docks for live foods for them. I used flower posts, PVC pipe but the most popular to the octo were the road cones. If I never went out of town I would do it again, but raising baby octo is a everyday job. Once again very nice tank, and could let me know what temp you are keeping them at.

Yes, the life span is short (they say about 18 months). I'm impressed by the clever way you farmed baby octopus. Did you tie the road cones to the pilings, or just let them sit on the bottom? I assumed that when the babies hatched they would immediately disperse, but it sounds like they hung around the cone for a while. How long? Did you have to check it every day? Did the mother stay around after hatching to protect them? what size were they when you grabbed them? What did you feed them? the larger octopus that I've kept have all been happy to eat pieced of defrosted scallop. I wonder if baby octopus will eat tiny pieces of scallop.

 

When is "egg laying season"? Four, of the eight, octopus I found last week were mating when I found them, so maybe it's coming up about now. What size road cones did you use (what was the diameter of the hole at the base?)

 

I keep my octopus at 60 degrees F.

[cheryl jordan]

The stations as I call them were why back in the bay, by Channel island and Lito island. I did not have to attach them to anything as there is really is no real current back there. I believe the season was in and around April as I would not have been diving without a suit at that time. At times yes the female was still there, because she is not going to hunt and her life cycle is over. The babies hung around for about two or more weeks and they were very small when I collected them. I never tried anything other than live foods when raising them. You have to be careful when collecting live foods, as sometimes the live food turns out to be live baby octo preditors, I never lost any to the live food I collected because I watched them eat to make sure and I leaned what is good and what will try to eat the babies. Feeding were twice a day and I kept the left over alive with a air pump and micro algaes and sponges I also collected. I guess because I lived in S. CA I never needed a chiller for the octos and no big time lighting. Water changes where critical, but I was happy to comply. Ursula was my first octo and I bought her, she brought me many happy times and had a great personality, often trying to pull me in the tank to play. She prefered little neck clams and this worked out well because I could put them in the tank as she would eat when she was ready and the food stayed alive. I believe I still have pics of this time and I will try to find them.

[SPARTAN VI]

Wow that's so cool. Spent a lot of time in La Jolla and had no idea of all the life in my backyard (not literally speaking). Does the bimac have the capability to change color like some other octopus?

[ajmckay]

Cool tank.

 

Seems like you always have to be 1 step ahead of these guys. I'm not interested in a cephalopod tank just yet, but I'm sure as options become more apparent the niche will grow.

 

Thanks for sharing.