[Featured]: Metasepia Hatchling Journal

[Bongo Shrimp]

Hi Everyone,

I have been an hobbyist for 15 years and have worked with dwarf cuttlefish and pajama squid during part of my time as a professional aquarist in the public aquarium industry. After many years hoping for the opportunity, I recently was able to acquire some flamboyant cuttlefish eggs to try to raise at home.

I started with a ton of research and prep in every aspect of their care, specifically setting up live food holding and a nursery tank. They were shipped to me in eggs, 25 total, but due to a flight being pushed, they hatched on the way to the US from Thailand. This resulted in heavy losses and only 12 made it initially. As of this posting I have had them for a little over two weeks and now have 6 left.

They are in a heavily filtered, 25g tank, but in an isolation box within the tank since they are so tiny. There is a pump that supplies water from the top of the box for a little bit of flow.

I have been feeding them live mysids enriched with daily hatched artemia naups and they were mostly eating well for the past week, but recently I’m concerned they haven’t been eating as much. I think it’s possible this is due to me adding too much food at one time, which I now know can cause them to lose interest, but I have also seen them striking at food but not catching it, which is perplexing.

A few have been growing, but others have become buoyant, probably from not eating enough. I’ve talked a bit with Rich Ross, Bret Grasse, and Greg Barord, who I know are members here too, but if anyone has any ideas definitely post them here. I’m giving this everything I’ve got, it really is proving to be the ultimate challenge and I love it!

I’m not sure how this will end, but I figured I’d document the journey for others and myself in the future.

 

[tonmo]

amazing! I've moved this to the Exotics and Rare Species forum (with a permanent redirect), per prior guidance from @Thales et. al. for this species. I've also [Featured] it. Looking forward to this Journal!

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

amazing! I've moved this to the Exotics and Rare Species forum (with a permanent redirect), per prior guidance from @Thales et. al. for this species. I've also [Featured] it. Looking forward to this Journal!

Oh man sorry for putting it in the wrong forum! I went back and forth and couldn’t decide since it was a journal but for an exotic species.

And thank you! I hope it can continue for quite a while. I’m definitely a bit nervous since the more buoyant little ones seem to continue to struggle. I have since moved the most buoyant to a super shallow box within the isolation box to help them feel more comfortable and closer to prey items. They still seem weak though.

 

[tonmo]

Oh man sorry for putting it in the wrong forum! I went back and forth and couldn’t decide since it was a journal but for an exotic species.

No apologies necessary! In the future I'll be rationalizing site navigation, etc. It's hard to know where to go / what to do with our current configuration. It's on a to-do list!

And thank you! I hope it can continue for quite a while. I’m definitely a bit nervous since the more buoyant little ones seem to continue to struggle. I have since moved the most buoyant to a super shallow box within the isolation box to help them feel more comfortable and closer to prey items. They still seem weak though.

it's a daunting task, I am sure! Here's another fairly recent thread, from @Jimmert, who is also giving this a go:

Has anyone tried feeding amphipod babies to flamboyant cuttlefish babies?

I was curious as I was hoping to cultivate flamboyants and am ready with live mysid when the time comes as there is a local place that sells them but was curious when the time comes would they eat amphipods and would they have enough nutritional value?

tonmo.com

 

[pkilian]

If you've already chatted with Brett and Rich then you are doing everything you can. The babies can be fussy but you have a really nice setup! You could try a finer grain sand which would make traversal of the bottom easier for them but might be difficult to swap the sand at this point. Food transitions off the mysids can be difficult too so I would focus on finding the right size shrimp for your animals before they get too big for mysids, if you haven't already. Good luck! They look beautiful

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

If you've already chatted with Brett and Rich then you are doing everything you can. The babies can be fussy but you have a really nice setup! You could try a finer grain sand which would make traversal of the bottom easier for them but might be difficult to swap the sand at this point. Food transitions off the mysids can be difficult too so I would focus on finding the right size shrimp for your animals before they get too big for mysids, if you haven't already. Good luck! They look beautiful

Thank you for the advice! I probably could still swap out the sand in the little boxes. I ended up removing the rocks that were in there cause I felt like they were making it harder for the cuttles to see their prey if it was on the other side of the rocks. If I did change the substrate or for future attempts, I might also go with black sand to help maybe make the prey stand out more.

Yesterday I was finally able to witness one of the larger ones catch some prey and today I saw the larger ones trying, but missing, and a slightly buoyant one did catch a mysid. One of the super buoyant ones was gone by this evening and the other two are struggling still. It seems when they get to that point it’s really really hard to get them back. Just trying to note all the details.

As far as transitioning to larger foods, my first experiment is with Hawaiian volcano shrimp. They are way WAY too fast, but if their tails are damaged the larger cuttles can and do catch the smaller ones. Mine are still slightly too small to reliably eat the volcano shrimp, but I’m hopeful that the shrimp will be useful.