- Joined
- Aug 13, 2009
- Messages
- 1,740
I have raised and helped breed cuttlefish in a public facility, but this is my first attempt at doing it on my own at home. I placed an order yesterday at around 10:00am from NYAquatics for nine dwarf cuttlefish (sepia bandensis) eggs. The eggs were shipped via FedEx Priority Overnight by 11:30 am the same day, and arrived at my door by 9:00am today 03-17-2016. In preparation for the eggs, I purchased and assembled two plastic mesh breeder boxes (one for the eggs and the other for live food), and placed them in the main display. I have collected a few amphipods from my sump/refugium and placed them into the feeder box, along with some macro algae from the refugium into both boxes. I will purchase some live mysis shrimp as soon as the eggs start hatching. Utilizing an API test kit and a refractometer, the water quality of my system is as follows: Ammonia – 0.00 ppm, Nitrite – 0.00 ppm, Nitrate – < 3.00 ppm, Phosphate – < 0.25 ppm, pH - 8.1, Specific Gravity – 1.028, Temperature – 79*F. The salinity is a little high because I ran out of RO top off this week and haven't replaced it yet. This will happen tomorrow. The packaging was in pretty good condition. Inside the sealed cardboard box was my invoice with an attached acclimation guide on top of a sealed one inch thick styrofoam box. Inside the styrofoam box were two med/small heat packs, newspaper, and of course...the cuttlefish eggs in what appears to be a half gallon sized (double bagged) clear plastic bag. The majority of the eggs have animals clearly visible inside of them, though several seem to be duds. You can see this in the picture below. The picture is poor quality because I took it with my android phone in one hand while holding the bag up to the ceiling fan light with the other, but you should still be able to make out the fertile eggs with the embryos and yolk sacks and the smaller darker eggs. Acclimation began at 9:10am with the water quality in the bag as follows: Ammonia – < 0.25 ppm, Nitrite – < 0.25 ppm, Nitrate – < 1.00 ppm, Phosphate – 5.00 ppm, pH - 8.2, Specific Gravity – 1.030, Temperature – 79*F. The water chemistry is not too far off, but I'm still going to take a nice slow acclimation. I have the bag sitting in a one gallon aquarium with a drip line into it. The bag was about a third full of water, so when it is near the top I'll move them over. I estimate about an hour or two. I'm probably being a bit excessive, but better safe then sorry. I'll post more pictures when I get them into their mesh box.