Cuttlefish+Daphnia?

[Yurei]

Hello. First post. It seems there is a guarantee of no flaming and I don't think my question will get a flaming .

Anyway I'm just starting to really think about keeping one Sepia Bandensis, raising it from an egg and I was thinking about food. Of course I probably won't get near starting this tank up for a year or so...

My question is, would daphnia work? They live in salwater for some time, they're easy to culture, and I "gutload" them. Now I'm not sure how much nutrients they have from my gutloading, but my freshwater fish seem to be very happy now from their daily live food offerings rather than their pellet foods (for some reason my Boraras micros seem happier with the life food).

Usually people feed daphnia yeast water or green water, but for me I just put in like 5 pinches of normal fish food and its either the bacteria eat that food and the daphnia eat the bacteria, or the pond snails in the tank are eating the food, and pooping out good stuffies for the daphnia and bacteria. Anyway I think I'm getting them full of good stuff by feeding them in this way.

And I was wondering, could I gutload my daphnia with cuttlefish desired nutrients and feed the daphnia to the cuttlefish newborn? For now I was just thinking saltwater fish food. But are there some nutrients that cuttlefish really love that could be good to get vitamins of and then dissolve the vitamins in the daphnia water?

But then I just realized the cuttlefish would quickly get too big for daphnia. Well would it work for the first few weeks of tinyness?

Thanks!

P.S. I just tested how long daphnia would live in water of SG 1.026 and it swam "lively" in the water for around 2 min before it started hanging around in the bottom slugishly. Would that be too quick for cuttlefish?

 

[Jean]

Hi Yurei and

I wouldn't be happy feeding Daphnia, even gut loaded ones. FW critters tend to have the wrong proportions of fat to protein for cephs (cephs have a protein based metabolism). A much better food source would be something like, amphipods, mysid shrimps, euphausid shrimps, copepods or some other marine crustacean. Marine fish food isn't right for cephs as a rule. Cephs eat A LOT too so be prepared for that. Don't worry too much about the prey swimming quickly, cephs are very fast movers too, even hatchlings!


J

 

[Yurei]

Ah I see... Just thought maybe if I gutloaded them the right fat to protein ratio it would make it good enough for cuttlefish. And when I said too quick I meant to say would the daphnia die too quickly before being caught by the cuttlefish. Daphnia are sluggish lol.

And do freshwater creatures generally have more fat than protein? Just a thought. I know goldfish have lots of fat and so do their food.

And since daphnia would be food for only like the first week would the cuttlefish die or become severely sick because of a strange diet only for week?

And thanks for the welcome .

 

[Jean]

Hi Yurei.

It's generally best to have food that will survive for a few hours as some juveniles won't feed immediately (although some will!!). You're right most FW food is way too fatty for cephs and much too low in protein. The other members will tell you this is a bit of a hobbyhorse of mine but I really believe the only suitable food for cephs is marine in origin. And cephs sicken and die so quickly if their environment isn't spot on it's really distressing for the ceph friend!

J

 

[Yurei]

Alright I won't take any short cuts then lol. That being my only one .

Time to spend lots of money... Grr. Not yet though lol.

Thanks for your help Jean. But if anyone else would like to give me their two cents then please do so!

 

[cuttlegirl]

I think Daphnia would be too small for newborn S. bandensis. Mine did fine eating mysids for the first few weeks before transferring to shore shrimp. It is an expensive hobby, but well worth it. I bought my live food at aquaculturestore.com. You can check out their prices. I went through about 200 mysids every 5-7 days. The cuttles didn't eat that much, but the mysids ate each other .

 

[Yurei]

How many cuttles did you keep?

And yah I threw away the daphnia idea already lol.

And how many times a day should one actually feed a newborn. And how long should this continue? Could I just house the food with the cuttle and let the cuttle eat whenever it wants or will it overeat and die?

 

[cuttlegirl]

I had three in a 55 gallon tank. Check out this link for information on their care. WC bandensis eggs!. Also, this article has good informationCephalopod Care. If you can get the June 2007 issue of Tropical Fish Hobbyist, there are some articles on cuttlefish (and cephalopods).

Other than that, start searching on this site, there is a lot of information.

 

[Yurei]

Yah I read the keeping and breeding article but I can't find info on how often i should feed. I'll read the thread, wasn't aware that he was giving out information on keeping them!

Thanks!

 

[monty]

I'll just say since it seems like your questions have been covered. Have you already found the ceph care articles under the "articles" button at the top of the page? Probably, but in case not, that's a good place to check, too.

 

[Yurei]

Thanks! After reading the thread to page 16, I'm guessing I won't be getting cuttles from the egg stage, but rather when big enough to eat amphipods and shore shrimp. To me the mysids seem to be a real hassle. I live near the shore but collection is illegal and I know there's crap at our shore that won't be good for the cuttles.

I have another question... but I'll search first and then if I don't find an answer I'll ask it on another thread. Thanks guys!