The culture of cephalopods has never had great significance as a source of food for mankind, probably due to the abundant numbers of fish caught commercially. However, many species of cephalopods have been kept in captivity since ancient times, with the aim of investigating their behaviour, studying predator-prey relationships or providing live specimens for aquariums. In order to differentiate the activities carried out with cephalopods in captivity Boletzky and Hanlon (1983) distinguish between maintenance, or the conditioning of juveniles of the same age in captivity, rearing, or the growth of specimens over a period of time, but without reaching the second generation, and culture, when, from the paralarvae obtained in captivity, the growth of the juveniles continues until the second generation is produced, thus completing the culture cycle of the species. About 10% of cephalopod species (approximately 70 of the 700 known species), have been kept, reared or cultivated, an extremely high number when compared with other marine invertebrate organisms or even fish. However, in only 12 of these have there been cases related to their culture, and the results obtained from the majority of cases are not applicable on an industrial scale.The most attractive factor about the culture of cephalopods is based on the fact that they are marine organisms with a very short lifespan (from 6 months to about 3 years) and, as a result, have a very rapid rate of growth. The greatest inconvenience in their culture is that, in the majority of cases, they are carnivores and their paralarvae require live prey, which is difficult to obtain. They also have very poor tolerance of low salinity and oxygen levels, although they are highly tolerant of ammonium, nitrite and nitrate levels (Hanlon, 1987).
One of the most widely studied species is the cuttlefish (specifically Sepia officinalis). Promising results are currently being achieved for the growth and survival of juveniles, but the main problem lies in not having an inert feed available that would make operations profitable in this regard (Domíngues et al., 2002 & 2004). The squid (Loligo vulgaris) is also the subject of diverse research, particularly in the phase of paralarvae rearing (Vidal et al., 2002 & 2005). The current situation, although still in the experimental stage, is aimed at the use of copepods as live prey for the paralarvae, as these have a suitable biochemical profile that meet the nutritional needs of the paralarvae.Among octopuses, a brief investigation is being carried out on the species Octopus maya in Mexico (Rosas, 2005). By not having a pelagic life stage, nor therefore paralarvae, the newborn examples are already benthonic and have a similar form to the adult. Despite this theoretical ease of culture, the species also suffers very high mortality during the first few months of culture, due fundamentally to the lack of suitable inert feed for fattening. With respect to Octopus mimus, data has been published on the reproduction and growth of this species in Chile (Zúñiga et al., 1995) and in Peru (Baltazar et al., 1999 & 2000). Its rate of growth is much less than that of the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) and the main problem with its culture also lies in the high mortality of its larvae, which presents an obstacle to its industrial application. Other species of octopus cultivated at an experimental level are Octopus bimaculatus in Baja California (Mexico), Enteroctopus megalocyatus in Chile and Octopus lobensis in Argentina.