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Food options for cuttlefish hatchlings

briareus

Cuttlefish
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Apr 28, 2012
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Well, we don't have mysis shrimp in Singapore, save for a few non-feeder colonies in tank systems. What else can act as a genuine diet for cuttlefish hatchlings, in the case of sepia bandensis or even metasepia spp, which seem strangely to be more common here.

What is the size of the food item that hatchling cuttles can accept?

Here's a list of local shrimp species. Scroll to the bottom. Prawns and Shrimps on Singapore shores

Thanks!
 
Unlikely, land is a precious resource here and agriculture tends to be lacking. Why aren't ghost shrimp or glass shrimp bred for their larvae to feed cuttles for instance?
 
I have been experiementing a little with peppermint shrimp and have found that you can encourage spawing by keeping a pair in a breeding net and overfeeding. One pair would not be enough for feeding, you can't count on spawning and the shrimp die/disappear rapidly so the net must be in the same tank but you might experiment with other shrimp and in larger numbers (with the peps, keeping three did not result in more eggs and once ended up with cannibalism of the smallest and then of the mate).
 
What do you think about the nutrition levels of other shrimp species besides the mysids? Is there a sane way of testing or making a guess about this, instead of simply feeding them and waiting?
 
In the case of saltwater shrimp, the big issue is not nutrition (unlike brine shrimp) but whether or not the animals can and will eat them and if you can provide an on-going supply. One of the antedotal findings is that cuttles don't seem to eat well if there is food continually in the tank. For whatever reason, they seem to need a "feeding time" and then the food needs to be removed.
 
None of them are particularly easy, especially on a small scale.

Lysmata spp have had the most success, but its work and they tent to settle around 50 days after hatching. Mostly breeding any kind of shrimp is difficult on a small scale, especially if you want regularity. Large scale is different - get a ton fo shrimp, stuck them in ponds and let nature take its course. Fresh and Saltwater 'ghost' shrimp are raised in big ponds, as are some kinds of food shrimp.

Here are some small scale links:

Breeding Journal, Species: <Lysmata boggessi>
http://www.tcmas.org/forums/showthread.php?p=331134#post331134
Behavior And Breeding Of Peppermint Shrimp

Other options include amphipods, mostly gammarus, should be collectable along any ocean shore in the world - you just have to poke around to and see if you can find them in enough numbers and the right size. Gammarus are also available commercially, at least in the states and Europe.

Fish are also a possibility. Poecilia sp (guppies, mollies and sailfin mollies) can be acclimated to salt water with various degrees of success, and their gut loaded fry can be used to feed cuttles, though I don't know anyone that has used them as a sole food source. Again you run into the problems of ease and scale - you can't just grab a couple of pair and generate enough fry to feed out on a regular basis. http://www.guppies.com/forums/showthread.php/33610-Marine-Guppies-(Full-Saltwater)

The major issue of breeding food for cephs yourself is the scale needed to make it reliable. One rule of thumb (and I don't really like these rules of thumb) is that you will need 4 times the water volume of the animal you are trying to feed to raise the feed animals. Essentially, you get into the food raising business which can be very time and resource consuming.

I think thats all the tricks I have. Feeding any marine animal offspring is the major stumbling block in any marine species breeding, so know that we are not alone in the ceph world with this issue.

All that said, I hope you or we find a simple, practical solution to this problem.
 

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