flamboyant cuttlefish

[Tomh]

Hi i have had about five octos over the last 6 years now i am trying flamboyant cuttles. They are about 1 1/2 inches each. Both have eaten spirulina feed ghost shrimp 2 each today and 1 each the first day i got them. How much do you feed them? What about lighting i have a LED light that has a Blue actinic feature and other setting is whites. blues and a couple of red. Do they mind bright lighting? I dont know if they are male or female but there is no aggression. Is there a way to tell? Thanks for any input. Tom

 

[Tomh]

Nobody??????

 

[Tomh]

really?????

 

[DWhatley]

@Tomh we have not had many people to be fortunate enough to get flamboyant eggs so there is not much species specific experience to draw from.

 

[Tomh]

Ok np, they are doing well will post pics Asap. Thanks

 

[DWhatley]

Thanks for journaling, this will help the next keeper A LOT!

 

[Tomh]

Hi i have been feeding these guys gut loaded ghost shrimp daily. Any idea on how much to feed Them? Till they stop eating. Thanks

 

[tonmo]

Unbelievably cool. They look great. Have you checked out @Thales articles on Daisy Hill Cuttle Farm? I still need to import these onto TONMO; I have his permission! - Metaspeia

 

[tonmo]

...hmm, I'm looking for feeding-specific info. Definitely use the search function, too. A bit of info here from @Severine:
Rearing Flamboyant Cuttlefish
...and an interesting thread here from @FuEl:
https://www.tonmo.com/threads/husbandry-requirements-for-flamboyant-cuttlefish.15536/

 

[Severine]

Hi! What information are you looking for? I'll try to help where I can.

 

[Tomh]

Hi Severine, as far as feeding them how much do you feed? One is about 1 1/2 inches and other is 1 3/4 inches. I have been feeding gut loaded ghost shrimp. Is that ok and what else to feed?I have taken care of numerous Octopus but this is my first try at cuttles. Also do males and females start off at same size? Cause one is growing faster than other and they are eating the same. Just trying to distinguish if i have a male and female. Thanks Tom

 

[Severine]

It sounds like you might have a pair, but they are still quite small. You won't be certain until you see mating behaviors/a female guarding eggs.

As far as food, I was only ever successful getting them to accept ghost shrimp. It's good that they are enriched. They should be each time they are fed out. I don't know where you sourced them from, but you can try different foods and see. I wouldn't try live brine though. As far as amounts, you should keep offering food until they are full, 2-3x a day. They will eat more as they get bigger. Females, at least in my experience, were bigger than the males if that helps you any. But you could also have the same gender and one is just more competitive. It'll likely be a wait and see scenario. They do tend to be the same size for a while.

Here is an article you can use. It helped me a lot. It's a compilation of different articles, but it discusses Flamboyants as well. Brett pioneered the husbandry for these guys and has a lot of great information in there about them.

http://drumandcroaker.org/pdf/2014.pdf

Good luck with them and please reach out if you have any more questions. They are a very challenging species but incredibly rewarding as well.

 

[Tomh]

Thank you!! will do.

 

[Squirlntus]

The flamboyants that I was raising were eating mysis shrimp at least three times a day. When they got bigger and I moved them to ghost shrimp they seemed to only want one shrimp every other day. The adults that were breeding would take two ghost shrimp a day or one peppermint shrimp a day. Some of them would take more if I gave it to them, but they were all fine and healthy and breeding/ laying fertile eggs with one peppermint shrimp a day.
The way I sexed them when I was choosing breeders was by size. The males were smaller than the females. I was to put 4 females and two males together for breeding. I was really worried that I wouldnt get fertile eggs. That I wouldnt choose any males, but sizing them up against the othrrs worked pretty well. The ones I chose to be males, the smaller ones, were in fact males. The larger ones were the ones laying the eggs. These were on cuttlefish no larger than two to three inches.

 

[Squirlntus]

As far as lighting, they didnt seem to mind bright lighting, or low lighting either way.
We had as many as ten housed together at a time and we never saw any aggression between the flamboyants. Guess thats why I was so shocked to see it from my dwarfs.