I want an octopus!

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And don't live very long in aquaria...
 
my lfs (one that went out of business) had an octopus inside one of their selling tanks. they placed the octopus in a small hamster cage (the plastic ones with like the pink top and glass door that latches on top) and left for the night. they came back in the next morning to find out the octopus had escaped, and after it escaped, it went to the remaining 7 selling tanks and ate everything in the tanks.

I happened to walk in as soon as they openend because i was fascinated about the octopus, doing almost daily stops to check it out. I noticed it wasn't around anymore so I had to ask when they sold it. thats when i got the scoop about what happened the night before..

lol, those poor people had no idea...
 
It would be neat to have one. Just do your homework so that you will have the best knowledge at keeping it. That way you will know that some are very poisonest and a danger to you and anyone who might come in contact with it. Good luck if you decide to keep one.
 
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Lol, well i probably won't be ready for anything like that for a while. I would freak out if I woke up and it was gone from the tank. Especially since I have a cat and a 5 month old. My plan is to get my freshwater going, then move to saltwater. If I become a pro like that then I will try lol. I do think it would be really awesome to pull something like that off though!
 
+1 cmor +1 big jim. yes octopi are hard to keep and care for. they will escape and grow fast and eat anything they can. just another word of causion they need to be in a tank alone.
 
I think they should not be an animal to be had in a home aquarium. it would be really cool, but I just can't see them being happy and thriving to the fullest in a home aquarium.
 
I think they should not be an animal to be had in a home aquarium. it would be really cool, but I just can't see them being happy and thriving to the fullest in a home aquarium.

Bravo. Sometimes it seem that we are more concerned with what we can do versus what we should do.
 
Even in that aquarium (I have spent a lot of time there as a guest and volunteer), they can't keep the octopi alive longer than 6-9 months. Their lifespans are so short that by the time they are captured, QT'd, etc. they already have 4 or 5 tentacles in the grave. They really should remain in the oceans IMHO.
 
Even in that aquarium (I have spent a lot of time there as a guest and volunteer), they can't keep the octopi alive longer than 6-9 months. Their lifespans are so short that by the time they are captured, QT'd, etc. they already have 4 or 5 tentacles in the grave. They really should remain in the oceans IMHO.

Wow, I had no idea! I was just being facecius lol I wonder why they don't do well in captivity? I mean, would they even explore half of that aquarium? It doesn't seem to be an issue of they don't like being in a closed environment?
 
WOW I would LOVE to go to those aquariums! I would be in heaven lol.

You would think that the octopi would be OK, but maybe it just isn't meant to be. :(
 
Wow, I had no idea! I was just being facecius lol I wonder why they don't do well in captivity? I mean, would they even explore half of that aquarium? It doesn't seem to be an issue of they don't like being in a closed environment?

It's not that they don't do well in captivity... it's that they just plain don't live very long, even in the wild. Granted... different species have different life spans, but I know that even the big monsters we have up here in the Pacific Northwest normally don't live more than 2-3 years even in the wild - and they're some of the largest ones ever recorded.
 
It's not that they don't do well in captivity... it's that they just plain don't live very long, even in the wild. Granted... different species have different life spans, but I know that even the big monsters we have up here in the Pacific Northwest normally don't live more than 2-3 years even in the wild - and they're some of the largest ones ever recorded.

This is what it is. They are great little creatures and i have found them being rather hardy but this is 1 thing that dosent live long at all anywhere.
 
I searched the forum but couldn't find it.... Does anyone remember the guy on here who had like 3 different species of octopus? He had youtube videos linked in his posts. I can't seem to find them but they were neat to watch from what I remember. I think he had three different tanks with a species in each.
 
If it doesn't do well in captivity, it shouldn't be in any aquarium and especially not a home aquarium. If its that the octopus doesn't live long, then there isn't much of a reason to have it as a pet and spending so much money when you will only have a few years to care for it. It is tempting to want something but sometimes we need to let that feeling go away to make it better for the animal.
 
If you have the time and space to devote to a species specic tank they can be quite entertaining. But, octopuses have a short life span, from 6 months to a few years. Th elonger lived one get to be too big for a home aquarium. For the home expect a lifespan of 6 months to just over a year depeding on the species.

A friend of a friend set up an octopus tank. Keeping it the tank was never easy.
 
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