You should feed the octopus once per day, preferably live food that would activate the creature’s hunting instincts. The ideal tank conditions include water temperature between 74 to 78 F, a rocky layout, and low lighting. This creature is powerful, aggressive, uses camouflage to hunt, and can lose limbs when threatened. You should expect your octopus to grow up to 12-14 inches and live around 8-12 months, although its lifespan will vary.Īside from that, everything about the common octopus falls in line with all species. Fortunately, you won’t have to deal with such a monstrous specimen since octopi rarely, if ever, reach these sizes in captivity. The common octopus can grow up to 36 inches in the wild and weigh up to 22 pounds. Strictly speaking, this is a must, as you can’t place it in any specific category. The common octopus is as…common as they come, yet not without its charm. Common Octopusīulbous eyes, large head, 8 tentacles, and a soft and flexible body. With that said, you have 6 popular octopi that you can keep as tank pets: 1. Always secure your tank properly to prevent this aquatic Houdini from making its grand escape.
A 10-15-inch-wide octopus is also capable of squeezing its body through a 1-inch opening. They can climb the tank’s walls with ease and even push the tank’s lid to get out. Secure the tank – The octopus’s tentacles are very sensitive and powerful at the same time.Keep the tank in a darker room with some moderate environmental lighting and plenty of shade. Avoid light – The octopus doesn’t live with UV lighting.The octopus loves to move around the rocks and find cover from sunlight in shadier areas. Have plenty of rocks – You can have a reef structure without the corals or simply a rocky system with caves here and there.Some core things to keep in mind about their tank setup include: You only need to consider the animal’s basic requirements and make sure it has all the necessary conditions to remain comfortable and healthy in its habitat.Īll octopi are ambush predators that display amazing camouflaging capabilities. While it may sound intimidating, keeping and caring for a pet octopus isn’t too difficult. Now, let’s look at some good octopi species that you can keep as pets. These animals are particularly aggressive towards their own and will resort to murder and cannibalism if you force them to live together. They have no patience for any tank mate and have no social instincts. Very aggressive – You cannot keep more than 1 octopus in the same tank.No matter how large their bodies are, they can always squeeze it through crevices and holes as big as the octopus’s eye. Escape artists – The octopus is highly intelligent and will escape even from seemingly secured habitats.In this sense, we have 59 to 72 F for the California two-spot octopus, 74 to 76 for the Caribbean dwarf octopus, and 60 to 65 F for the East Pacific red octopus. Temperature requirements vary dramatically – The octopus demands varying temperature ranges, depending on the species.These are solitary creatures that need to live alone and undisturbed in their environment. This means you can’t really pair them with any tank mate. All octopi are carnivorous – They will consume a variety of fish and crustaceans even larger than their bodies.So, let’s go through the basics to figure out the core facts about this awesome creature: This is the last photo we took of him before he plunged into a surge channel and out of sight.If you’ve never had an octopus before, you may be completely oblivious to the animal’s care requirements. He also seemed to change texture to more closely blend with his surroundings.Īt this point, he lunged out of the water and "slip-slided" across the kelp-covered rocks. In just a few seconds, we watched him begin to change color. He poked his head out of the water and looked around for a means of escape. He was caught in a small tide-pool, and seemed desperate to flee our prying eyes. When he sensed we were near, he retracted his tentacles and his body became more bulb shaped.
At first we saw only a couple of tentacles creep out from under a rock. The Red Octopus (Octopus rubescens) can be found on the Southern Oregon Coast, but only at an extremely low-tide, in large tide pools or surf grass, and you have to be really lucky! We have yet to spot our first octopus on the Oregon coast, but we are always on the look-out.īack in April 2004 at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve south of San Francisco, we had the tide-pool experience of a lifetime when we saw an octopus put on what looked like choreographed performance.
0 kommentar(er)
