new and questions

poss

Hatchling
Registered
Joined
Sep 16, 2007
Messages
3
Hi everyone new here from Sydney, Australia.
I keep reptiles at the moment; pythons, geckos and turtles. Iv kept fish nearly all my life, mainly cichlids, but have kept seahorses and other marine fish also- my brother is just cycling his marine tank now so he will be able to help me out with the pumps, filtration, skimmer etc.
Now im thinking of getting a couple of cuttle fish, but have a few questions before i do:
1/ can you keep live rock with cuttles?
2/ could i keep pipefish or seahorses with cuttles?
3/ would anyone be able to tell me what species are available in Aus? Are they CB here?
4/ would i be better off getting a few eggs and hatching them?

Im not in any hurry to set this all up...so i have plenty of time to read up, learn and save money.
cheers
 
:welcome:

Live rock is certainly fine with cuttles. Seahorses certainly wouldn't hurt the cuttles, but there's no guarantee the other way around... someone kept a seahorse with a ceph (I forget if it was an octo or cuttle) sometime about a year ago and I think it survived for a few weeks at least, but that may be more because the ceph was well-fed with tastier food than because it was safe for the seahorse... in general, we recommend a species tank.

I don't know of anyone breeding cuttles in OZ, but we'd love to find out if there are. A lot of our info is a bit North-America-centric, not because we want it to be, but because we've had relatively little information from Australia (Colin is a one-man font of knowledge from the UK, which helps, and we have a wealth of knowledge from the NZ science community in terms of Steve and his crew and Jean, but I'd still like to get us more globally aware.)

The flip side is that the cephalopod diversity around Australia is great, so hearing about your experiences will be great for everyone!

edit: raising bandensis from eggs is something a number of folks have done, and it generally seems to work out pretty well. The hard part about that is that cephs grow quickly, and want food that's right for whatever size they are today, so you have to be on your toes about making sure you have a supply of various sized small critters for them that they're willing to eat (cephs are known to be picky eaters, and many will only accept live food of some particular type.)
 
As far as I know there is no one breeding ceph's in Australia, but there are several species of cuttlefish that can be found in the waters around Sydney. If you know a diver they could probably collect some eggs for you but you would have to check on what permits you need to collect from the wild.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I was thinking about getting a cuttle from warmer waters, further north (Queensland) - so i dont have to buy a chiller - either S. pharaonis or S. mestus? Preferably a mestus. Though im not sure if any Sydney LFS will have northern species available because of them not traveling well?
Anyway il call a few places over the next couple of days and see what species they have had in before.
Anyone else be able to shed some light on the questions?
 
Welcome to Tonmo ! I'm sure some of the OZ members will chime in soon, being from the Arizona desert, there isn't much advice I can give you on downunder cuttles, but do look forward to hearing more from you !
You'll find that a lot of us are herpers, also.

Greg
 
Hi and welcome to TONMO.com!

We'd be interested in hearing what cuttles are availble when you call around to inquire. Octopuses, too.

Pharoaonis is a big cuttlefish! Mestus would be a better size to keep.

Nancy
 
Thanks for the welcomes everyone. Yeh i would rather mestus, but if pharoanis are easier to get i might think about them?
I still havent gotten around to calling anyone yet. Il do soon, and tell you what i find.
Nice to see theres some herpers around too!
 

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