Oklahoma family whose pet octopus laid 50 eggs reveals how they care for the consortium – including ingenious homemade aquariums

An Oklahoma family whose pet octopus laid fifty eggs has revealed how they care for the hatchlings with ingenious homemade aquariums.

Cameran Clifford, 36, and his wife bought Terrance the sea animal for their son Cal’s ninth birthday in October.

He found the female California two-spot at a local aquarium after his son fell in love with them from the age of three.

Now the family have created their own system to care for the babies, making ‘little octopus homes’ using household materials until they are big enough to be moved.

In a video posted on the family’s TikTok, known as doctoktopus, Cal was seen holding one of the babies by the hand as it spun around.

“Baby bimacs are exponentially more sensitive to water parameters than adults, especially temperature,” they explained in the video.

‘Because of this, transporting them at this size is extremely risky, basically a death sentence.’

A separate shot shows a large aquarium filled with foliage, bright lights and containers of baby octopuses.

‘So it’s up to us to take care of them. We can do that,’ said the dedicated father as he showed his wife, whom he referred to as his ‘sous vet’, meticulously cleaning the glass for the tank.

While cleaning, Cameron showed the temporary shift the family has set about creating as they take on their new role as octopus caretakers.

When the father told his son that they could order an octopus from a local aquarium store, Cal immediately burst into tears.

“His ultimate dream, his cloud nine, the greatest thing that could ever happen in one’s life had just become a possibility and he just broke down,” Cameron said.

‘Of course my friends and family all, as you can imagine, said to me: ‘Well, now you have to get it to him. You can’t just dangle it in front of him and then turn around and just brush that dream,’ the father added.

The father and son began preparing for the arrival of the pet octopus, as Cameron ordered a saltwater tank, a water cycling system and food supplies for Terrence, mostly from Facebook’s marketplace. He thought it would cost about $600.

But what the family didn’t realize was that Terrence was actually a female who started releasing ‘a chandelier’ of tiny eggs two months after it arrived.

He was told by experts that the eggs were unfertilized and the release of eggs only signals the end of the female squid’s lifespan.

Until one night in February, Clifford picked up an egg and was completely shocked.

“I hit it by accident and this blob comes out and spreads these tiny tentacles and makes three swimming strokes across my point of view,” he said.

While it’s been a fun and interesting adventure, the father made it clear that they’ve run into some struggles along the way.

“At one point we ran out of little octopus homes,” Cameron said, showing one of the babies inside a ‘super hipster restaurant bottle’ as it latched onto the glass and moved up and down.

As the family arranged 50 separate homes for the unexpected offspring, they spent thousands of dollars on clams, crabs and snails, and had to cover the costs of repairing damage to their house from spilled water and a small electrical fire.

Speaking of one particularly messy incident, Clifford said: “I wish I wouldn’t have opened that valve like that and dumped all that dirty seawater on my children’s white carpet.”

“Don’t get a pet octopus unless you’re ready to lose sleep and your kids’ college fund at the same time,” he said USATodayin jest.

Meanwhile, the desperate father began calling aquariums and research facilities, begging them to take the babies off his hands.

“It’s a lot of work,” he said. ‘A lot of work and emotions and money and time.’

‘I don’t know if we’ve been fully prepared for any of these challenges, but the hope is to get home as many as we can.’

In a video, Cameron said it takes about two to three hours a day to look after the babies and their mother.

In another shot, the containers were stacked on top of each other as a red light shone down on their home. The family has called the octopus’s new home ‘Clamsterdam’.

“Although it was eminent that statistically we would lose most of the young youngsters in the coming weeks…we decided to enjoy the journey,” Cameron said.

The experience is overall joyful and rewarding, as he said: ‘It’s been an absolutely fun experience, not only for me, but for my children as well.’

Two months after hatching, half of the babies are still alive, an astonishingly higher than average survival rate.

“Every scientist I talk to is always kind of amazed by the fact that we were able to get such a high yield in a children’s bathroom,” he said.

And Terrence is still alive, Cameron said.

‘She is fine. She just lives the rest of her life in her tank alone. She will probably die in the next few weeks, although my assumptions about her have been consistently wrong.’

The family has also become famous as their page has gathered more than 400 thousand followers on TikTok.

“I think there’s a lot of people out there who had this crazy dream when they were a kid and then it kind of ran away as they got older,” he said.