Cuttlefish diet

[reef-maharani]

I am currently having a discussion with another cuttlefish keeper about the appropriate diet for them, this person claims that frozen shrimp alone is perfectly sufficient for long term health and growth. I know that in the wild these guys would certainly not eat shrimp every meal, every day. I was of the opinion that giving them a varied diet of shrimp, clams, and marine fish would be more advantageous. Ideally these frozen foods would of course be a supplement to live crabs and shrimp. We can agree that live foods are preferred, however, they still believe that the frozen shrimp alone is enough. I was wondering if anyone could point me to any really good reference works on the subject. Personal experience is great as well, however it does not have the convincing power of the printed word. I would love to find some really in depth scientific articles or detailed books that I might be able to get access to. Your help would be much appreciated!

 

[Thales]

I don't know if you are going to find the study you are looking for. I would be interested in reading it though!

Live foods are only as good as the facility they are kept in or the area in which they are collected. I am moving from live foods to frozen because I am worried about the quality of the live food I have been collecting.

As a side note, my two new w.c. bandensis took to thawed frozen krill from day two - they started begging behavior the same day. Amazing.

 

[reef-maharani]

The dead foods are readily taken and with fervor. The live foods would be from local sources as we live on the beach, ie. collecting, bait shops. All live foods are routinely enriched first with nauplii, spirulina, and whatever else I can find. However, our main point of contention has been the feeding of one food item for every meal. It has generated some concern that the only food item is frozen shrimp and it seems the cuttles eat more of the shrimp and certainly seem to excrete more....so some folks suggested that perhaps the other foods were meeting more nutritional requirements, thereby generating less waste. Everything I have read seems to suggest a varied diet, I am wondering however, if there is some nutritional information I have missed somewhere. There are several people involved in the discussion so we all want to find the most healthful and appropriate diet. So, just thought I would throw this one at everybody and see what the consensus is. Again, any good reference if it exists would be ideal...

 

[marinebio_guy]

You can keep cuttlefish in good health on frozen shrimp, I raise them on live food (mysids, shrimp) untile they are about 4 in long and then switch them to frozen food. Of corse live food is best (shrimp, crabs, fish),but a lot of people can not get live food year round. I have done some studies on the difference in growth between a diet of live fish compared to a diet of live shrimp and it seams that shrimp is better. Although I am about to start a new study that should be published some time next year.

 

[Thales]

BTW, what species of cuttle?

 

[Mikey]

Slowy moving mine over to dead food, using the shrimp I have caught after feeding them.

Managed to get all but 2 to feed on them tonight.

Suppose the beauty of gettting them ont dead food by the stick, is that you can vary their diets, which I am sure makes healthier cuttles.

 

[Jean]

Good quality frozen, should be OK but I would still occasionally feed live, these are intelligent animals and hunting is a behavioural enrichment for them

J

 

[Neogonodactylus]

A few years back we quit using locally collected live crabs and snails to feed our cephalopods and stomatopods because I became convinced that heavly metals and/or other pollutants were being concentrated in our animals and causing a variety of health problems. I mentioned this to Roland Anderson who was having similar problems with their GPO's. If memory serves me correctly, he has some of the prey they were using analyzed and found them to be contaminated.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use live prey, but if you do, they should come from non-polluted waters.

Roy

 

[Jean]

A few years back we quit using locally collected live crabs and snails to feed our cephalopods and stomatopods because I became convinced that heavly metals and/or other pollutants were being concentrated in our animals and causing a variety of health problems. I mentioned this to Roland Anderson who was having similar problems with their GPO's. If memory serves me correctly, he has some of the prey they were using analyzed and found them to be contaminated.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use live prey, but if you do, they should come from non-polluted waters.

Roy

Too true, I guess that's where we're lucky down here in NZ (particularly in the South) the water quality is pretty, jolly good! In fact both the aquarium and lab just pump seawater from the harbour, through sand filters to the tanks...no problem. Any sedimentary pollution we have is spot pollution and the sources have mainly been removed and the sediments are coming right again........no heavy industry!!!!

But we still do water and sediment checks regularly and also check water samples for toxic algaes etc.....you can't be too careful!

J

 

[Thales]

A few years back we quit using locally collected live crabs and snails to feed our cephalopods and stomatopods because I became convinced that heavly metals and/or other pollutants were being concentrated in our animals and causing a variety of health problems. I mentioned this to Roland Anderson who was having similar problems with their GPO's. If memory serves me correctly, he has some of the prey they were using analyzed and found them to be contaminated.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use live prey, but if you do, they should come from non-polluted waters.

Roy

Hey Roy,

What were the problems you were experiencing?

Rich

 

[Colin]

My original S officinalis were fed almost entirely on live or locally collected food. And the small Sepia I have just now are also going to get the same treatment for the time being. I often collected and froze food on the same day.

I also think that variety is important and have fed cuttlefish a few different items, anything in moderation is ideal.

This has included... Live, 3 species of crab, hermit crabs - deshelled, squat lobsters, 3 or 4 species of prawn and fish.

dead, prawns, squid, fish and crabs.

I never had much luck getting them to take mussels, clams or scallops

Once, I fed them squid. Next day I lost one cuttle to cannibalism and the normal little tussels over food became more serious with chunks being taken... never used squid again. I guessed that cuttlefish and squid must taste quite similar? LOL

So to recap, I don't think even enriched shrimps is a good staple diet, they need variety and feeder animals themselves are only as nutritious as their last meal. Just now I catch several shrimps, put them in a tub with a good quality aquarium fish flake for an hour or two and then immediately feed them to the cuttles

 

[Jean]

I must admit we NEVER feed frozen only live......plus we don't actually get the large cuttles here so we don't keep them only the wee sepiolids!

J

PS well the cephs and seahorses get live ........the other fish get frozen!

 

[reef-maharani]

Thank you so much for the responses everyone! One of the main concerns about the frozen shrimp only diet was that the shrimp are partially cooked. As I was talking to some others about this they were not sure if the shrimp were already cooked before freezing or if they had become that way during thawing....I was not present as this was another persons cuttles, but that did seem an issue to me. I was also wondering if the frozen shrimp only diet might have any effect on their life span...just postulating, but I was wondering if we REALLY know how a diet affects a cuttle. Perhaps an 8 month life span is cut short by a month due to some yet unkown nutritional issue. Granted a month is not long, however when they only live a few months to begin with it seems more pertinent. Mine are Sepia pharaonis. All of the live food is enriched, however I had asked someone if there was any way to enrich the frozen shrimp and was told that there was not. Does anyone else know of a way to maybe add some sort of vitamins, or something to the frozen shrimp? I have also wondered about giving them vitamin pills of some sort...anyone had any experience?

 

[Jean]

I would say partially cooked shrimp is not a great idea, many nutrients get cooked out! As for enriching frozen food you could try soaking them in a vitamin solution (checking of course that there is no copper ) Something like selcon, maybe. I guess if you can get live food from a clean area or reputable dealer ...it's always going to be the best option.

Even when we feed frozen fish to the aquarium inhabitants it's always export quality!



J

 

[Colin]

Yes, i agree with Jean here and that pre-cooked then frozen foods are bound to have a lot of the nutrients missing from them that fresh food has.

Yesterday while out grocery shopping I stocked up on some raw fresh tiger prawn tails (from ASDA Mikey) and have got them frozen. Tried a wee bit of them on the baby cuttles last night but they didn't recognise them as food. Point is they were in the section for stuff just about to go out of its best before date and I got two big tubs for pennies.

Also froze a lot of the large Palemon shrimps that I caught on Saturday. They will be ideal for using later when they grow a bit or use bits of their tails when they don't have to reply on food looking like shrimps.

The cuttles only eat the same part we do so buying raw tails is perfect.

When i am feeding other animals like my amphibians or fish i quite often hide 'good fo them' foods inside the dead food item, EG Reptomin food sticks inside a dead mouse for my large frogs but that only probably works for feeding animals that eat something whole... never tried it with cephalopods