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

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

i likey.

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

Very nice! What do you feed all the gorgonians?

siiiiccckkkk!!!!

Awesome strawberry nems.

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

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

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

beautiful tank.

Super nice tank, KUDOS

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.....

Umm, wow!

wow!

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

Wow stunning!

I'd love to see larger pics.

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.



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.



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.



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

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

Very nice tank

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.

Very, very nice.

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.

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.

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?

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.

I loved going to La Jolla when I lived in San Diego. Very pretty and interesting people...and free water! lol

I never found an octopus, but tons of crabs.

The seals are really neat too in La Jolla. I miss San Diego...not the fires, droughts, earthquakes, governors, traffic, or gas prices though.. just the scenery. lol

do they breed in winter? i have noticed a few of them coming into the shallows lately, one particular tidepool has at least 6 different octopi. (I spelled that right I hope - )

I can not tell you when they breed, I believe it is in the spring and early summer, but I am sure someone from CA who is familar with Marine Biology can tell you. I have found them in tide pools year around but they were also mature. My octo had a life span of about 8 to 11 months and none of the octo I raised every laid any eggs. I suppose one could try recieving some eggs from a nest, but that mom octo is going to give alot of trouble. If you keep the eggs clean with a simple air pump and do not feed anything to the tank so no algae grows on the eggs you could probably hatch them. I would choose eggs that are close to hatching any way.

Thanks for all the great information. Pics would be great! I think bimacs are often kept at room temp, but I worry that it would speed up their metabolism and maybe shorten their lives. I also keep strawberry anemone, which like it cold (below 60 F), so I definitely need the chiller. I tried putting extra live food in my octo tank once (live crabs). The octo ate, or at least killed, all of them as quickly as she could, which overwhelmed my bio filter. Maybe she would have eaten clams more slowly, since they are a lot of work to open, but she never learned how to open even small muscles, so I gave up on clams.


Yes. I have a black wall on the back of my tank, and when I startle him, my octopus turns black and slinks into his cave. They not only change color, but also texture. They can make their skin bumpy or even spikey, so that they look more like rocks.


I don't know when they breed, or even if it is seasonal, I just know that twice I grabbed an octopus a discovered that I had two octopus. I'm speculating that they were mating (as opposed to fighting (they can be cannibalistic)), and further speculating that they are mating more this time of year than at other times.

That is a sweet tank! I plan on having a Octo tank someday, a biotope would be nice since I dive the Puget Sound quite often.

so cool! I wish we had bimac's up here, Giant Pacific octo's get a little too big for my tank. I don't think they're intertidal either. I'm still hoping to see a bobtail squid though, they only get two be 3-4inches long, and are supposedly very cuttlefish like in captivity.

I think you get Octopus rubescens up there, but they reportedly make lousy pets. They are about the same size as bimacs, but I think they are nocturnal, and belligerent. If you don't need it to be local, but still want an octopus, I can send you a bimac, or you can get an O. hummelincki. They are about the same size as a bimac, and have a great personality, and as an added bonus, they like room temp or warmer water, so no chiller is needed.

She's so pretty!

Completely AWESOME! What type of octopus is she?

O. Bimaculoides - "California Two-Spot Octopus"

love it!!!!!!!!!

probably a different species with different breeding habits anyway...I am in florida. I was just curious, I don't have a tank to hold them in so no octopus for me. I did try to see what they are like to hold though....freaky! Hard to explain, but the tentacles feel like a dry stickiness, even though my hands and the octopus was under water. Different to say the least, really cool animal. You can tell they are smart. After releasing him/letting him walk away I told my brother about it. When he approached the same octopus, instead of using its tentacles to fend him off like he did to me, (which I then used to pick him up), when my brother put his hand near him he pulled the tentacles underneath himself and didn't pull them back out until we walked away. He started changing from blue/green to blue/green with spots.

anyway, thanks for the cool thread.

sickkkkkk

This brings up a question. I don't want to start a debate in your build thread... this is just an honest question because I don't know much about these inverts. Is this tank too small to keep such an intelligent creature for the rest of its life? Or, do you keep it for a while then release it? Sorry if this was covered elsewhere.

I think my guide book lists O. rubescens as deepwater? Maybe I'm making things up. But no octos for me at the moment, I'm going to college next year.

Uhuru - They can have problems in tanks. You're supposed to provide them with toys and puzzles so they don't get bored... as long as you keep them amused I think they do fine.

I have a strict one-way-trip policy which I hope everyone who keeps "local" animals will adopt, and so I would never release anything that has been in my tank back into the wild. The reason is that, even if I'm careful, there is a chance that a local animal might be infected by a non-local disease or parasite while in my tank (from the store bought scallop meat I feed my octopus for example). If I then release the animal into the local ocean, it could pass the non-native disease on to the native population, which could be devastated by it.
The tank is physically big enough, so I'll address the boredom aspect of your question.
Of all the animals that we might call intelligent, I can't think of one that is farther away from humans on the evolutionary tree, than the octopus. For that reason I think we're on shaking ground whenever we try to guess how they feel, especially if we use human feelings as a guide. Do octopus (highly evolved snails) "enjoy" anything, or get "bored"? For example, they go months without eating when they are brooding their eggs, showing no signs of what we would call hunger. That being said, there is certainly a chance that, like us, they get bored if they don't have any "interesting" things to do, so I feel obligated to try to provide interesting experiences. Octopus keepers call this "enrichment", and it usually consists of dropping unfamiliar objects into the tank every few days. Baby toys are a favorite, because they are non-toxic, and colorful. I try to give live food (especially crabs) as often as possible, because octopus seem to "love" to hunt. When I feed pieces of thawed scallop, I offer them on a bamboo skewer, and I always play tug-of-war with the octopus for a while so that it gets to "feel" as though it is subduing its food.

nice a cw octo tope niiiiiiiiiiiice


edit: new term octotope claimed, PERIOD.

Any updated pics?

Wow C-Rad, can't believe I've missed your thread for so long. Simply amazing.

I'd like to request a FTS if you got it

New pictures pleasee! .

so cool.

I just love this so much. I'm relatively new to this hobby and when I read this and must have looked at other octo tanks for hours!

I'm glad you like it, I sure do. I just got added a bat star to the tank. It has six arms instead of the usual five (presumably because two arms grew back after one arm was injured when the sea star was little), so it's a bat star "of David". My wife's family is Jewish, and they're going to get a kick out of it (I'm kvelling!)

I also recently set up a 2 gallon tank for a tiny little octopus I caught during the low tides on November 5th. It's arms are only about two inches long, and it only eats live food, so it's keeping me busy. The new tank is sitting on top of my main tank, and I have a small pump pumping chilled water from the main tank into the small tank, which overflows and drains back into the large tank, so I didn't need to set up a new chiller of filtration system. When my big octopus dies (they only live at most two years, and he's got to be nearly that old) I'll move the little guy into the big tank (octopus don't live together well)

it's tons of fun, thanks for looking

wow do you have any pics of the 2gal and the tiny octopus?
would love to see it:)