Hi, New here

Pea-brain

Cuttlefish
Registered
Joined
Jun 27, 2007
Messages
21
Ummm...Hi I guess. My name is Dan. I've got 2 10 gallon aquariums, both saltwater and both had mantis shrimp until recently. They both died, probably from a bad molt. I'm looking into my water for heavy metals (I think it was cause by my salt, which I recently switched. Any ceph keepers here use coralife salt?) I guess my facination with cephs started when I was really young, then some time later (somewhere between 10-14) I looked into them as pets. I did alot of research (No research actually. I only remember reading anecdotal stories about someones neat octopuss behavior while thinking " man I can't wait to setup a ten gallon for one!" HA!) Anyways I am now back onto the ceph track with about 4-5 months of SW experience under my belt and a great deal of reading. I was trying to figure out what to do with my spare 30 gallon, acrylic. My first thought was o. scyllarus (peacock) mantis shrimp. I ended up deciding against it in favor of dividing it up to keep 3 mantis shrimp. Decided against that in favor of keeping a mantis in a reef tank, decided against that in favor of a seahorse tank, and finally decided against that because my tank was 2 inches too short. This all took the span of 2 weeks. Then it hit me! I wanted an octopuss. I did all that research a few years ago...what size tank did they need (pause, long drawn out "aahhh", drooling) Dang! Okay I'll go look it up. Got sidetracked, read about various octos, decided I wanted O. briareus, got back on track, minimum 50 gallon for any good octo, 10 for dwarf octos like O. mercatoris, but they are boring. Dr. Roy said that O. briareus could live in a 30 gallon if water quality can be kept up, but I wouldn't want to have to stretch a system and overstock it like that with such a sensitive animal. Then I remember a few months ago I looked into S. bandensis cuttlefish, and how they can be kept in 20 gallon highs! Fastforward a week and here I am, joining Tonmo.com and planning to setup an S. bandensis tank somewhere around midsummer and hoping to get some S. bandensis eggs somewhere around october, which is when I hear they usually come in. Awesome, huh? Okay, I'm done now :biggrin2:

Dan
 
Wow, that's quite a first post.

Welcome to the right place. You should check out the Ceph Care Articles (top left corner under the TONMO logo) and read all you can there. Tons of helpful information from very experienced people.
 
Wow, I just went through some other introthreads and realized mine is much longer than the other. Oh well, if I'm gonna say something I might as well say it in detail.

Dan

Edit: I posted right after you :smile: Anyways, I've browsed (cough spent hours reading through cough) some of it......
 
As someone who's often ridiculed for posting a "wall of text," I can bid you a hearty :welcome:

It sounds like you're already finding your way around just fine. Roy (Neogonodactylus) studies stomatopods as well as cephs, so you overlap his interests pretty closely...
 
Yep, Dr. Roy is on the mantis boards on RC relatively often. He's also on TONMO too. I'm pretty sure that this is where I saw his post in a question about what octo would be suitable for a 30 gallon.

Dan
 
:welcome: While a 30 gallon will work while the S. bandensis is/are small, I think they would be more comfortable in a 55 gallon minimum. I kept 3 hatchlings in a 30 gallon until they were about 5 months old and then transferred them to a 55 gallon. I have one left and he would NOT be comfortable in a 30 gallon. Just my humble opinion... but welcome anyway, always good to have another potential cuttlefish owner :biggrin2:.
 
Welcome to Tonmo ! Looking forward to seeing some pics of your tanks, too...
 
Thanks everybody. Cuttlegirl-I'll keep that in mind. I plan to keep the cuttlefish in the 30 gallon. It is 36" long so thas about 9 times the length of an adult, but if I feel the cuttlefish are cramped I can always upgrade. I would just really prefer not too because IN the next 2-3 years I hope to go to college and a 55 would be out of the question to bring along, while a 30 gallon acrylic is slightly more forgiving, and also cost issues of course. Cthulhu77- Here is the most recent pic of my tank, slightly rearranged since I lifted my P. ciliata's rock to find a few pieces of shell. The rock on the bottom ion the left rock pile is the one he burrowed under.

DCFN0073.jpg


And a pic of my late P. ciliata, Knives
knivescloseup-walking.jpg



And a video of knives walking....
Photo and Video Storage | Photobucket

I've never realized I had that many feather dusters on my glass before lol

Dan
 
Hey, i forgot to ask, but what happened to octopets.com? I had bookmarked them and then a few months later tred to go back and it went nowhere. I figured server problems. i tried again and it still doesn't work. i understand that it is closed down, and has been for a bit, but what happened? that place was kinda cool.

Dan
 
Wow...that was kinda mundane. i was expecting a fire, or flood, or massive system failure, or something a little more dramatic. well, at least that is a bit more pleasant. Too bad though.

Dan
 

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