Family who got their nine-year-old son a pet octopus reveal how it upended their life and destroyed their home after giving birth to 50 babies

An Oklahoma family had no idea that a birthday gift for their nine-year-old son would lead to the birth of 50 octopus babies, countless water tanks taking up more than half of a bathroom, and thousands of dollars in food supplies and water damage repairs. .

Cameron Clifford, a 36-year-old dentist, said his son Cal had been obsessed with octopuses since he was 3 years old.

“Every birthday, every Christmas, every holiday, he would always say, ‘All I want is an octopus,’” Clifford said told the New York Times.

In October, Clifford called a local aquarium store and purchased a female California double-spotted octopus for Cal’s ninth birthday. They called her Terrance.

Terrance turned out to be bigger than expected and soon started laying eggs. Clifford documented the journey on TikTok, where his videos received millions of views from 400,000 followers.

“Don’t buy an octopus as a pet unless you’re ready to lose your children’s sleep and college money at the same time,” he said USATodayjokingly.

When Clifford told his son they could order an octopus from a local aquarium store, the nine-year-old immediately burst into tears.

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

“My friends and family, of course, as you can probably imagine, all said to me, ‘Well, now you have to get it for him.’ You can’t just dangle that in front of him and then turn around and just crush that dream,” the father added.

The father and son began preparing for the arrival of the pet octopus, which they named Terrence.

Clifford ordered a saltwater tank, a paddle boat system and food supplies for Terrence, mainly through the Facebook marketplace. He thought it would cost about $600.

But what the family didn’t initially realize was that Terrence was actually a female, who started hatching “a chandelier” of tiny eggs two months after arriving.

Experts told him that the eggs were unfertilized and that the release of the eggs would only mean the end of the female octopus’ lifespan.

Until one evening in February, Clifford picked up an egg and was absolutely shocked.

“I accidentally dropped it, and this little droplet comes out and spreads out these little tentacles and makes three swims across my view,” he said.

Terrance the octopus eventually hatched a total of 50 babies, and “all bets were off,” he said.

The family had to arrange fifty separate houses for the unexpected offspring, spending thousands of dollars on clams, crabs and snails, not to mention the costs of repairing damage to the house due to water spills and a small electrical fire.

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

Meanwhile, the desperate father began calling aquariums and research facilities, begging them to take the babies from him.

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

“I don’t know if we are fully prepared for any of these challenges, but the hope is to relocate as many people as possible.

“And those who can’t, we’ll figure out a way to keep them alive and be responsible. It’s not really a concrete plan, but so far we’re doing pretty well.”

The experience is overall joyful and rewarding, as he said, “It was 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 survival rate than average.

“Every scientist I talk to is always somewhat amazed at the fact that we’ve been able to get such a high yield in the children’s bathroom,” he said.

And Terrence is still alive, Clifford said.

‘It goes well with her. She lives alone in her aquarium for the rest of her life. She will probably die in the next few weeks, even though my assumptions about her have been consistently wrong.”

The family has also become famous, as Clifford has amassed almost 400,000 followers on TikTok.

“I think there are a lot of people who had a crazy dream as a child, and it disappeared when they got older,” he said.

“I think they also really empathize with this stereotypical story of a father who decides to give his child a pet, and then of course turns into the father who almost exclusively cares for that pet, except in this case, down to the last detail. .’