My cuttlefish adventure.

[Kerrick]

Ok, thanks guys. Is it possible for baby cuttles to ink in their eggs? Ever seent this?

 

[Kerrick]

Update: so I can see cuttlefish moving in some of the eggs again. They are white when the lights are out and dark during the day. I'll post pics sometime today/tomorrow.

Question: I'm getting some mysis shrimp in today. Can these be house with the Janitor shrimp?

Thanks,

 

[Kerrick]

So, got my camera working a bit better. Here is the first hatchling. He hatched this morning and hasnt done alot except move when a mysis bumped into him. I put 3 in there just in case but I know it takes them a couple of days. To recap. I have one hatchling and 8 viable eggs left.

 

[Mike Bauer]

Crongrats!

Is it a boy or a girl? Just kidding

 

[DWhatley]

I have not had good luck with mysis but suspect that most anything will eat them so housing them with other shrimp is likely to be feeding the wrong critter.

 

[Kerrick]

Yeah, out of the 100 I ordered and recieved yesterday only 60 made it... The rest were dead or canabalized. I am keeping them in the main tank in a breeder. The next batch I will keep at the salinity they come in with a small tank.

 

[Thales]

The die off in shipping can be a regular thing with wild caught mysis. Its one of the reasons I switched to cultured mysis. I don't think salinity has much to do with it. When I kept mysis at home I did it in a tank (actually a trash can) plumbed into the ceph system. Worked great without the hassle of keeping an extra tank.

 

[Kerrick]

Thanks for the input guys. I will probably do a mix of cultured and wild caught mysis when I order. the 60 or so I have should last me a week. (Every egg now has a cuttle visible so I have my fingers crossed).

Little guy hasn't eaten yet but he is still only on his second day. I have 3 mysis in the net with him so I will continue to watch.

 

[Cephdoc]

Kerrick, do yourself and the cuttles a favor and switch to cultured mysis... They are so much healthier, last longer, and seem to be liked more by the cuttles. They can be alittle more expensive but you get what you pay for. I can give you a link if interested with a supplier i had success with about 4 months ago when i was at your stage.

 

[Cephdoc]

http://www.reedmariculture.com/mysidshrimp/index.asp Try these guys, i had alot of luck with them. Good luck!

 

[Kerrick]

Thanks Cephdoc. I believe I will take everyones advice and just go with the cultured. A new pic from this morning... Over night 3 more hatched putting me at 4... The 5 remaining eggs all have visible cuttles... Fingers crossed!

 

[iAlex]

Baby cuttles are so small!

 

[Kerrick]

2 eggs hatched last night leaving the total at 6 hatched/3 eggs left. I have tomorrow off so I will hopefully get some good pics. They seem to have moved every time I come back but I don't see much movement when I'm watching.

 

[Kerrick]

Some updates: All the eggs have hatched that were viable so I now have nine hatchlings. The biggest one is eating steadily and two others are showing hunting behavior/swimming with feeding tenticles stretched and chasing mysis. The other 6 are still pretty dormant and I have not seen them trying to eat but they are all less than 4-6 days old. Hopefully they are eating. I put about 8-9 mysis in the net with them twice a day and they have been eaten. I doubt 1 or two cuttles is doing all of this but I could be wrong.

I have ordered 500 mysis which should be here tomorrow. At the rate the first cuttle is growing he should be onto small shore shrimp in a week. Hopefully the others aren't far behind him.


Question: what foods should I gut load the shore shrimp with when I get to that point? I have some live ocean Algae gel that is supposed to be good. But some meat might be better for the cuttles.

Pic:

 

[Mike Bauer]

Very Nice! I am glad to see that others are having better luck. Congrats and hope they live long and reproduce.