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Found local live Mysis, how far does 500 go? (And my plan)

Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Messages
2
Location
Frederick Co
Found a local science testing supplier that has live mysis. Minimum is 500 at .08 per so $40. Figure that's cheaper than elsewhere online + shipping?

Question is, how far does 500 go with a handful of baby cuttles? I know I can't just dump them all into the breeder net. Since they canibalize real quick, maybe some kind of divided tank with multiple chambers to slow them down eating each other? Do they truly need live brine if I'm trying to keep them a while or would they not eat frozen brine or cyclopeeze. I'm unsure if I could maybe with enough time and established DT/Sump actually have a small amount breeding/roaming the tank. (Not for babies just any ones that make it to adults and are in DT)

I'm slowly working towards a cuttle tank and attempting a breeding population. So I'm just laying ground work now. Besides live mysis, I was going to try to have tank seeded with Palaemonetes Vulgaris as well as trying to breed some in a seprate tank or sump.

System will be a 300DD with a 125g basement sump and ~15g frag tank and a 110g acrylic tank I'm trying to decide if I should run inline as a macro/food growing area or whether I should run it seperate just as general QT tank or possibly food growing. Might pick up some 40B's to work with.

After mysis I hope to get them on the saltwater shrimp and frozen, or possibly another use for the 110 is a bunch of saltwater mollies to gutload babies.
 
Breeding mysis has not been successful in the numbers needed for feeding. Those that have tried methods to separate the new hatch from the mid size from the adults have reported it to be more work than is worth the effort for minimal results. This is not meant to discourage trying but is a request that you journal your attempts and outcome as it would be most excellent if someone comes up with a way to make the initial months less expensive.

I had miserable survival of shipped mysis until I tried placing them in a bio-Orb with well cured live rock, used a flexible airline placed in a circle around the bottom as the only water movement and aeration and fed frozen daphnia twice a day (no filtration, very few and very small water changes). I am not sure what part of the combination worked but I was able to keep a small community for several months rather than a week (or less) as with past attempts.

I don't recall anyone using sailfin fry to feed cuttlefish. In general, fish are not an adequate full-time food for cephs but can be offered for a treat/change.

Shore shrimp are a great food but very hard to culture. They will produce eggs but the fry do not survive in most tanks. For octopus hatchlings, I was able to get peppermint shrimp to spawn when kept in pairs (and pairs only - 3 will become 2) in a breeder net placed in the octo aquarium and overfeeding. The fry entered the tank but I was never sure if the baby octopuses ate them.
 
Sorry, to be clear, I meant any living in the DT/sump would just be incidental. Kinda like normal reef keepers occasionally report seeing them in their sump. I will certainly mainly be relying on this locally sourced live mysis. My biggest concern becomes if the minimum batch is 500, how long will they last, and primarily how to make them last as long as possible. (I love that the shore shrimp are much more content in a tank with heat/air/flakes)

Aside from saving on shipping, I figured it being local will be hopefully a nice boost to any mortality of the mysis. That's cool to hear that they would eat frozen feeds, I was infering from some other info live brine was only option.

On the shore shrimp I was going to be following the journal here. Breeding Journal, Species: Palaemonetes vulgaris Or Possibly FW version here. Freshwater Shrimp Keeping
 
I would definitely separate the mysis into batches of no more than 100 (50 if you have the room or small containers), include GENTLE air bubbles, minimize water flow and water changes, include live rock (possibly helped some young to survive predation but it does make it harder to catch them), feed at least twice a day and possibly use round vs rectangular containers. My bio-Orb was 8 gallons and I ordered 100 at a time.
 

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