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Food starting to cost lots of $$

joenewbe

Cuttlefish
Registered
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Messages
18
I have 2 small cuttle fish. I started with mysids and now am ordering shoresrimp from sachs. They went through 50 shrimp last week. The srimp were extra small this time. I figure this is going to cost me a fortune. When i had an octo i feed him mainly frozen shrimp
Does anyone have any ideas of cheap ways to feed them. They are only gonna get bigger and more hungry. I live in Wisconsin.
joe
 
It'll get worse before it gets better. My two go through about 100 shore shrimp in 10 days.

I believe mine will take frozen food when the time comes, however it will be a while until they can tackle shrimp that big.

Dan
 
You might discuss this problem with the people at Sachs - could you order more at a time, or could they make sure that more of are larger.

You might discuss cuttle food with your lfs and see whether they could help in any way, by ordering large quantities of shrimp and keeping them on hand. It's usually cheaper to order yourself.

It's expensive raising cuttles - in fact, it's expensive keeping cuttles and octos as compared with reef fish. On the other hand, they cost less initially and when they can eat frozen shrimp, you can buy a bag of shrimp, so they're a lot less expensive.

Has anyone tried frozen krill?

Nancy
 
Nancy;77763 said:
You might discuss this problem with the people at Sachs - could you order more at a time, or could they make sure that more of are larger.


Our shipment from them last week was mostly small shrimp, too.

I've let them know they can give me bigger shrimp, but I think last week they were doing what they could with what they had in their bins.

Dan
 
I also had tiny shrimp the last time (a few larger ones...) last week. I was a little worried because I went away for a few days and I just dumped about 20 shrimp in the tank and hoped for the best. They survived :biggrin2: .
 
cuttlegirl;77785 said:
I also had tiny shrimp the last time (a few larger ones...) last week. I was a little worried because I went away for a few days and I just dumped about 20 shrimp in the tank and hoped for the best. They survived :biggrin2: .

We were away for 10 days, although we had a neighbor coming in every day to feed. We had an experienced aquarist friend of ours come by on the day the shrimp were delivered to acclimate them and to make sure everything was working fine.

Regardless, it was a tough time for me having their safety out of my hands. Someday I'm going to set up webcams on the tanks so I can check in on them.

Dan
 
Two of my cuttles ate frozen krill today!!! I sure it is probably a fluke and they will never do it again, but I am going to continue to offer krill before feeding them live. I defrosted the krill in salt water, took one that still had eyes and placed it about 1-2 inches in front of the cuttle. The krill swayed in the water current and in about 1 minute, the cuttle aimed and grabbed it. They didn't spit them out (yet...) so I left them alone with their dinner. I will offer live shrimp later tonight.
 
I was thinking that my 200 live shrimp weren't lasting me very long... and I was thinking that the cuttles weren't eating THAT much... until I caught my cat "bobbing for shrimp". I have been keeping the shrimp in a large food cooler with about 1 inch of water in the bottom. I closed the lid (left about a 2 inch space for air to get in) and wouldn't you know, my shrimp supply seems to be lasting much longer. $#%* cat, it wanted the freshest food possible. Maybe it is jealous since I spend so much time with the cuttles...
 
My cat is definitely jealous of the fish tank... we thought when we first got it that it would be good Kitty TV while we were at work, but he completely ignores it unless we are watching the fish, and then he sits on the floor at our feet meowing angrily until we pay attention to him. Wonder if he would watch an octopus... :twisted:
 
I have been feeding local caught bait shrimp. They call them 'grass shrimp' and range in size from 1-3 inches. The cuttles love them, and seem to be lasting longer and getting bigger than previous cuttles raised on crabs. The shrimp are cheap - 4 bucks for 1/4 pound. I did have to set up a 40 gallon tank with a big skimmer to keep them alive.

Heres some shrimp pics:
 

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