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New babies

We need to figure out how many mysids people need to get started and feed the baby cuttles until they will take larger food. How many did you order?

Nancy
 
I don' t think the issue is figuring out how many they eat, its how do you keep mysids alive. I would say a baby cuttle 'can' or 'could' eat 4-10 mysids a day, but the question is will it? Or, will it not want to eat at all for a few days while the mysids eat each other or simply die. The problem I had before I switched to pods was the space needed to actually keep mysids alive and happy, and the price of shipping was killing me. I hate feeling obtuse on this area of cuttle raising, and the best advice I can give is get way more than you think you need.
I prefer amphipods because they don't eat each other. I am gearing up to order these guys
http://www.mariculturetechnology.com/Foods.htm#Frozen scroll down to marine shrimp janitors and feeders. :biggrin2:
 
From two data points, 100 mysid shrimp lasts me about 4 days. I expect to run out tomorrow morning after feeding perhaps 50 of them to the cuttles--the rest are cannibalized.

For this most recent order I considered getting 200 instead of 100. But at the rate of cannibalism, 200 mysids would really only last another day or two. Its kind of like how you pay twice as much for the 30 year mortgage to save a couple hundred bucks a month :smile:

The trick seems to be to keep the mysids well-fed. I made two small brine shrimp hatcheries out of 20 oz soda bottles, but I ordered cheap eggs and I have trouble getting them warm enough:as a result my mysids are only being fed every other day or so, at best.

I considered amphipods from Sach's. You get about 30 for slightly less than 100 mysids. As above, only about 50 mysids survive to feeding, so its pretty much a draw. I haven't had any luck finding either locally so I'm glad my little guys are moving towards shore shrimp.

Dan
 
RIP Meatwad

Well, the little guy died this morning. Late last week he was happily eating frozen mysids, and then he just stopped. I continued trying to offer them. I hadn't ordered another shipment of mysids, but the other day I did scrounge a few live ones to offer but he wasn't interested anymore even when they were right in front of him. Last night he started the surface-hover of doom.

This one does hurt a little bit because--even though he was smallest--he was the only one who'd eaten a frozen mysid. I thought he was a fighter, albeit a bit shy!

Otherwise the remaining two are eating shore shrimp voraciously. I think there's a growth spurt associated with shore shrimp, similar to how I understand bimacs react to fiddlers.

They're not interested in frozen mysids, but they might be too big to care for them. Maybe I should freeze and thaw a few of my shore shrimp and see if I can get them acclimated before they're too old and inflexible :smile:

Dan
 
Hey guys,

Just to let you know, as some people have asked, I am paying attention, I just want to see what you come up with without me sticking my big nose in and telling you what 'I' know. :smile:
 
cuttlegirl said:
:biggrin2: Thanks for looking out for us, Righty. Are you trying to push us out of the nest so we fly on our own? You will catch us if we fall, right???


Fall? Try dropping like flies :wink:

Actually my cuttles just finished eating. That's good news because they usually just eat in the morning--this is the first time either has had two shore shrimp in one day!

Dan
 
Sorry about the losses... It happens sometimes even if youve done everything correctly.

And yes, I notice shore shrimps will cause them to grow much faster then any other foods. I feed them a lot at that age, to get them big enough to tackle shore caught local crabs, because those are free =)
 
Hey, does anyone have a good technique for clearing out the shrimp heads? They're too big to grab with my eye dropper and two small to grip with a pair of chopsticks (for an untalented guy like me, anyway).

I take the net off and clean it every two weeks or so, but it would be nice to find a way to keep it tidy in between.

Dan
 
I use a large medicine dropper (it's for giving toddlers liquid medicine - I think it holds 1 tsp). I can usually get the shrimp head up to the top of the breeder tank and then I can scoop it out with my hand.
 
Cuttle update!

My two babies are each about an inch long now. I had a close call with my food supply, I ordered a new load of shrimp from Sach's in the middle of last week, but they had already run out for the week, so I didn't get the order until today after the long weekend. Luckily I learned my lesson from last time so my cuttles didn't have to go hungry at all.

They love smaller shrimp but are still a little anxious about ones bigger than they are. They will follow them and hunt them but typically wimp out in the end. They'll tire out after an hour or so, at which time I'll usually throw in some small ones (which they eat right away) or leave the big ones in overnight (most of the time they will eat them in the night).

Last night I left the big ones in because I didn't have any smaller ones. One of the big ones had been eaten, but interestingly enough the other had been killed but otherwise untouched.

Dan
 

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