• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

New Cuttle

pilotinho

Blue Ring
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Jun 5, 2005
Messages
46
I drove up to Octopets today and purchased a young Bandesis cuttle from Jim. He is hiding right now, I am a big believer in letting them have tons of places to hide. I drip acclimated him and hoping he settles in nicely. Wish me luck!
 
Squirt

Squirt is his name. I didn't know Octopets had any either I just asked to come by and see what he had. It turns out that he has quite a few baby bandesis. If you want them email him!
 
If anyone reads this

About how long does it take a baby cuttle to warm up the environment. I only have one shrimp and one NON-Damsel fish in there with him along with a star and two snails and two hermits. With the octo it took about two weeks. What about a baby bandesis? I fed him live brine shrimp today and some amphipods. What else is recommended live food for him? Are they noctural or will they adjust to your schedule like the Bimac? Thanks

~Paul
 
pilotinho said:
About how long does it take a baby cuttle to warm up the environment. I only have one shrimp and one NON-Damsel fish in there with him along with a star and two snails and two hermits. With the octo it took about two weeks. What about a baby bandesis? I fed him live brine shrimp today and some amphipods. What else is recommended live food for him? Are they noctural or will they adjust to your schedule like the Bimac? Thanks

~Paul

Hi Paul,

Don't know much about feeding cuttles but one thing I do know is that brine shrimp are not suitable food for anything! At most they can be used for emergency food, they are just not nutritious enough. My favourite analogy is that it's like us eating lettuce as a staple diet! Go heavy on the amphis and light on the brine shrimps! Also check out Tony's Shrimpstuff.com there's a link on the home page-much better food for Squirt!

J
 
brine shrimp

Ok I checked shrimpstuff, where and how would I keep 100 live shrimp? Would I put them in a breeder net or just turn them loose in the tank and let him eat as he likes? Will they get sucked into the filter? I also ordered some fiddler crabs from aquaculture.com but I guess he won't be able to eat them right away. He is too small. Thanks for all the help, this stage in critical in that I need to get my system of feeding up and running to keep the little guy happy.
 
unfortunately, keeping large amounts of shrimp can be an ordeal in itself. I have a designated 10 gallon tank setup to hold shrimps..I also keep some in a breedernet in my refuge of my larger setup, since a 10 gallon can only probably hold 100 until its too much bio-load.

Since you live in san diego, are you near the shore? It may take time to find an appriopriate spot, but areas with a lot of rock and not really a sand beach, you may be able to find shore crabs that live under rocks. I live in san francisco and find these here. Saves a LOT of money..Well I guess I have 15 more mouths to feed.. You can keep these in a 5 gallon bucket with some water and rock...
 
Hi Paul,

How big is your cuttle in comparison to your fish and your peppermint shrimp. The shrimp, of course, will eventually be lunch.:sad: . Also, how big is your food in comparison to the cuttle? Brine shrimp (besides having no nutritional value), may be too small for your cuttle. Good luck.
 
cuttle food

I am going to miss the peppermint shrimp, his name is Popcorn. I ditched the brine shrimp idea and got him to eat two ghost shrimp tonight. I also did a overdue %10 water change. I am still a little confused as to what people think is good food for him outside of shore crabs. Ghost shrimp are just an interim food until I get the real nutritious stuff. Thanks for everyone's help.

~Paul
 
pilotinho said:
I am going to miss the peppermint shrimp, his name is Popcorn. I ditched the brine shrimp idea and got him to eat two ghost shrimp tonight. I also did a overdue %10 water change. I am still a little confused as to what people think is good food for him outside of shore crabs. Ghost shrimp are just an interim food until I get the real nutritious stuff. Thanks for everyone's help.

~Paul

It can be confusing but good rule of thumb is "feed marine to marine"

What adds to the confusion is common names; in NZ a Ghost Shrimp is a burrowing marine shrimp (Callianasa filholi)!! but I understand that often in the US ghost shrimps are a freshwater species!

Palaemon shrimps are good food and some cuttles/octis can be trained to take frozen ones, also frozen scallops, clams etc

The bottom line is that good food for an cuttlefish (or any other captive animal for that matter!) is food that is as close to the normal wild diet as you can get it, which means marine crabs, shrimps etc

Cheers

J
 
Cuttles seem to acclimate really fast, often a matter of minutes if they are feeling secure. Giving him lots of places to hide can't go wrong. If he's started feeding then it normally means they're ok.

The cuttles I've kept seem to do pretty well on ghost shrimps and crabs from brackish water... also the occasional crayfish. If you can find these at a reasonable price, you could use this as a temporary food source til you find their marine counterparts.

As Jean mentioned, frozen fish, shrimp and crabs ae taken quite readily by cuttles, provided they look real and have some movement.
 

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