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Rearing baby octopus Hi there, <Hi Andrew, MacL here with you tonight.> Recently my reef octopus has been refusing food and not coming out, I  suspected it was coming to an end and was laying some eggs, I was right, I have come home today and there are hundreds of babies swimming around my tank!! I don't know what to do!! Many have already been sucked up into the filtration system, I'm not sure what I can do to help them. I would like some to survive but I don't know how to go about it. Please help if you can. <Strangely enough I happened on this webpage just days ago. Take a look, it tells you exactly what to feed baby octopus http://www.dal.ca/~ceph/TCP/rearing.html  His advice,  use Mysid shrimp, amphipods, crustacean larvae, crustacean appendages, and small crabs. Hanlon (1985) reports that food should be from 1/3 to 2 times the mantle length. He also recommend that you not use Artemia. I would think that brine shrimp that was soaked in Selcon would work. And possibly live brine as well. He does recommend making sure that the food gets to the octopus with tweezers and or with a turkey baster. Please let me know how they do. MacL> Thanks!!

Octopus Hi Bob, I've seen you reply to a lot of questions by people online and I was wandering if you could possibly help me. I have a dwarf octopus that has had babies (4) they seem to be doing fine but I don't know what or how to feed them?  (Do you know the species? You should look on the Net and quick re their care... Yes to being able to raise them...) Next I need to know if I should separate them from the mother?  (Yes... there is a chance the mother may eat them... or that her imminent death (very common) will cause their loss from water pollution) Lastly do you think there is a chance of them surviving? thanks Bill Nickens (Please see the Cephalopod coverage and related FAQs file posted on our website: www.WetWebMedia.com for more general information and references. Bob Fenner, in Cabo till tomorrow)

Re: long term planning (size of tank, foods, mandarin, cephalopod FAQs> The mail maintenance demons ate the original message, but your response to my comment that a 180 tank was not that much larger than a 120 was (to paraphrase) "that I should hang out there more often".  <Bizarre... reminds me of the "altered translation dictionary" skits of comedy teams> I was just curious (not offended, just curious, the short comings of email, you can't hear the tone of my voice) what exactly you meant. Oh, and I agree, your replies aren't short, they're concise. And if you're curious, I'm trying to assure my wife that my hobby won't eat our house. <I understand (methinks) all the way around... half again as big is "bigger" as in "I wish you were about to help me count my money"> And on a whole nother topic, I thought this might apply to the recent posting that mandarin fish take roe, please feel free to snip the next section and post it separately if you'd like. <Okay, will do so, thank you> Re Mandarin Tip: "Hatchling cephalopods require live food. While Sepia officinalis is the only cephalopod species that has been reared through their youth on Artemia, I do not recommend using Artemia unless there are no other options as many of the cuttlefish will die and the growth rates of the survivors will be retarded. Mysid shrimp, small marine fish, amphipods, isopods, and other small live marine crustaceans and fish are ideal first foods. Bill Mebane, a scientist at the Marine Biological Lab at Wood's Hole, has had great success using newly hatched killifish (Fundulus grandis, sorry killifish lovers!) to feed hatchling cuttlefish. Killifish eggs can be ordered from Gulf Coast Minnows; their address is at the end of this article. The eggs can be shipped damp, are inexpensive, and are an especially great option for land locked aquarists. Essentially they are the Artemia of the fish world. I've heard that some aquarium stores are starting to regularly offer live amphipods (also known as scuds, hoppers, or beach fleas) for sale; these are the main food I have using to fed my hatchling cuttlefish. " From Dr. James Wood article on breeding cuttlefish, URL for Dr. Wood's article: www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/tcp/cuttle4.html While I don't have anything but gut instinct to back me up, I imagine that killifish eggs would make good mandarin food if they are taking roe, and easier to get if you don't have access to a market that carries roe. Here's the URL for Gulf Coast Minnows: http://www.bayoubusiness.com/minnows/about.htm Hope this helps! Mike <Hmm, will post on the cephalopod FAQs section, "foods/feeding/nutrition" as well. Again, thank you. Bob Fenner>

Octopus eggs! (03/20/03) Hi guys <Hi! Ananda here tonight...> I have an octopus that laid eggs about 45 days ago (we had one about a year ago that stopped eating after it laid eggs and died) this time I caught it in time so make sure her food is right near her and she is eating every day. <Wow... very cool.> That solved that problem, the main reason I write today is I believe the eggs may actually hatch this time, they are becoming very clear from their original white color and you can see the baby octopi in the eggs. If the hatch do I need to separate them from the mother, and do you know what I should begin feeding them? <I would definitely separate them from the mother. There's a bit more info here about cephalopods: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/cephalop1.htm ... and you must check out "The Octopus News Magazine Online" at http://www.tonmo.com/ -- some of the people on their message board may have experience with this.> Thanks for any help you may have You guys rock best on the web!!!!! Bill <Thanks so much for your kind words. --Ananda>