SHEPHERD, ROSS, & AVILA: PIUSBANDRY OF THE COCONUT OCTOPUS 
243 
to a typical international aquari¬ 
um fish shipment, where water 
volumes are minimized to reduee 
shipping eosts, we shipped these 
eontainers “heavy”; eaeh speei- 
men was shipped with approxi¬ 
mately 2-3 liters of seawater. 
Again, this approaeh allowed 
animals aeeess to an abundanee 
of high-quality, well-oxygenated 
water, inereased the stability of 
the temperature during the long 
duration of the air transport, pro- 
teeted the oetopuses from being 
trapped in the ‘eorners’ of a flex¬ 
ible shipping bag, gave them a 
seeure den-like spaee during 
shipping and eliminated the pos¬ 
sibility of them puneturing the 
shipping bag with their beaks. As 
with our first eolleetion, the animals were double-bagged 
with newspaper liners in Styrofoam eoolers with eardboard 
outer liners, and iee paeks were used. The boxes were then 
shipped air eargo on a direet flight from Manila to SFO, 
with a total transit time of 14 hours. Export permits were 
arranged with BEAR and eoordinated with Aquaseapes 
Philippines and our stateside eustoms broker (Serviee 
Express, San Franeiseo, CA, USA). 
Aquarium Display.— We displayed single individu¬ 
als of eoeonut oetopus in two separate aquaria over a peri¬ 
od of 2.5 years. The first {Animal Attraction gallery. May 
2011-Mareh 2013) was a 350-liter aery lie aquarium (122 
em X 60emx46em), the seeond {Water Planet gallery, 
Mareh 2013-present) is a 240-liter aerylic aquarium (60 
em eube). These exhibits have very tight fitting lids made 
from twin-wall polyearbonate greenhouse material held in 
plaee by plastie eoated lead weights. The exhibits were set 
up as ‘natural systems’ where biologieal filtration is pro¬ 
vided by live roek. Meehanieal filtration, oxygenation and off gassing of earbon dioxide is provid¬ 
ed via foam fraetionation (ASM protein skimmer, model G4). Lighting eonsists of a eombination 
of blue and white, 3x1 watt MR-16 LED lamps (EeoGreen Solutions, Laguna Niguel, CA, USA). 
Water parameters are maintained at standard levels for delieate marine invertebrates (Table 1). 
Tank deeor eonsists of a few eoral rubble roeks, small bivalve shells, eoeonut shells, glass bot¬ 
tles and jars. The tank substratum was initially “Mineral Mud” (CaribSea, Florida, USA), whieh 
elosely mimies the muek substrata in whieh these oetopuses are found. This was later replaeed with 
siliea sand for maintenanee reasons and the animals showed no behavioral ehanges when substra¬ 
tum was switehed. Choeolate Chip Starfish, Protoreaster nodosus (Linnaeus, 1758) were sporadi- 
Table 1. Water parameter ranges 
for two displays of eoeonut oetopus, 
Amphioctopus marginatus, at Steinhart 
Aquarium. 
Water Quality 
Parameter 
Range of Values 
Ammonia 
0 mg/L 
Nitrite 
0 mg/L 
Nitrate 
< 15 mg/L 
pH 
8.1 - 8.4 
Temperature 
24-25°Celsius 
Salinity 
34-35 ppt 
Alkalinity 
3.2 - 3.8 meq/L 
Caleium 
380-420 mg/L 
Magnesium 
1250-1350 mg/L 
Phosphate 
0.05-0.15 mg/L 
Figure 5. Successful shipping was accomplished by paeking the eoeonut 
oetopus in individual hard plastie eontainers within plastie bags. Double- 
bagged speeimens were tightly paeked in styrofoam eoolers with outer eard¬ 
board shells. Photo by Erie Ho viand. 
