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Moving Cuttlefish

Kerrick

GPO
Registered
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
127
So I am selling a pair and I need to drive about an hour to meet a guy that is buying them. He will then drive back home 30 minutes so total time they will be out of a tank will be 1:30 plus however long he acclimates them etc...

I am suggesting he acclimate temp for 30 minutes then does a quick drip aclimation for 15 minutes... Then in the tank they go.

My question is how and with what should I move them.

My ideas:
1. a large... one gallon tupperware full to the brim of tank water freshly aereated from the outlet of the skimmer. Put one cuttle in one tupperware.... The other in a second.

2. Standard one half gallon fish store bags. Full of water and rubberbanded.
Either method I choose I will also bring a net and a backup bag/tupperware of water incase one of the Cuttles ink.

All comments are welcome.

Thanks,


If thales or anyone who has moved/shipped cuttles can respond that would be great! I'm really concerned if one gallon of water will have enough air for a 1&1/2 hour trip.
 
Well what ever method, do not use a plastic box, tub, container, et cetra. Oxygen drains out of the water very quickly in a plastic container. It would be better to use a styrofoam box. You could get a large styrofoam box and put some sand and an air stone with tank water and then you could just bag them up when you meet up with the guy.
 
I've never had to transport cephs long distances, but that's how I always brought back animals from the coast and they do just fine. I can see how the sloshing might stress out the cuttles though.
 
I would stick them in a 5 gallon bucket with 2-3 gallons of water with a battery operated air pump (or a plug in pump if you have an inverter or car with an outlet) without an airstone (better gas exchange from the larger bubbles breaking the surface tension than with small bubbles) - you are only going an hour or so so you would prolly be fine even without the pump as the water motion from the car should give good gas exchange. If you have an old salt bucket with a screw (to deal with sloshing) on lid you win, or you can pick one up from Home Depot for 5 bucks. I wouldn't use styro because if it cracks, you are doomed. A plastic ice chest will work just fine as well.

I would not put sand in a transport container for any ceph, or really for anything. I would be worried about possible abrasion, and if it has bacteria on it you can get an ammonia spike from it dying off or o2 depletion from its biological processes (in power outages, o2 depletion from sand beds is the biggest fish killer).

I have never heard of any problems with plastic containers, never had a problem using plastic containers for transport for animals at home or at work, and cant see a reason why O2 would 'drain out faster' from plastic than from anything else. Heck, millions of water animals are shipped in plastic every day. I am open to having my mind changed though.

Of course, bagged at a LFS with O2 works too. :smile:
 
I think I will go the bucket route as it seems easier. I need to go get an adapter for my car that way I can bring along my airpump.

Thanks for the input guys... I'll let you know how it turns out.
 
Not only the battery powered air pump, WalMart sells a snap-on lid with the battery powered pump which works awesome. I imagine a good bait shop would have it also.

It's probably $15-$20 but well work being able to close the bucket and save your backseat from getting a bath.
 
Thanks for all the input guys. Unfortunately the guy cant take them this week so I'm gonna have to seperate the pair I was going to sell him. I feel this is necessary because the second largest male is showing aggression to the largest male on a persistant basis. Every time they are hunting or swimming around and their paths cross they do the Pointy tenticles/pitch black thing. I just don't want to leave them alone for the week while I'm gone to the beach and come back to an injured cuttle.

Now I must weigh my options...
 

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