Southern California Octopus Biotope

[Dustin C Mills]

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

[johnmaloney]

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 - )

[cheryl jordan]

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.

[C-Rad]

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.

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.

 

Does the bimac have the capability to change color like some other octopus?

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.

 

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 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.

[blizzardscout2]

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.

[Jamie]

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.

[C-Rad]

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 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.

[spencers]

She's so pretty!

[animalmaster6]

Completely AWESOME! What type of octopus is she?

[C-Rad]

Completely AWESOME! What type of octopus is she?

O. Bimaculoides - "California Two-Spot Octopus"

[corallineadam]

love it!!!!!!!!!

[johnmaloney]

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.

 

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.

[Uhuru]

sickkkkkk

[Uhuru]

You can tell they are smart.

 

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.

[Jamie]

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.

 

 

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.

[C-Rad]

... 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 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.

[parker1222]

nice a cw octo tope niiiiiiiiiiiice

 

 

edit: new term octotope claimed, PERIOD.

[AquaticEngineer]

Any updated pics?

[bitts]

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

[AquaticEngineer]

Any updated pics?

 

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

[Hero]

New pictures pleasee! .

[150er]

so cool.

[AlisaMac]

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!

[C-Rad]

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

[Alkomist]

wow do you have any pics of the 2gal and the tiny octopus?

would love to see it:)