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Rosia Pacifica Questions

Joined
Aug 6, 2003
Messages
863
Hi, I decided to get a stubby squid instead of a cuttle and have a few questions.
How big of a tank will they need? Also, how deep of a sand bed should I have for one? Can more than one be in a tank? Are they as messy as octos? Should I get the tank sealed of with duct tape, or do they not try to escape? Should I put live rock in the tank, or just sand? Also, do they ship well? Thanks in advance.
 
Re: Rosia Pacifica Questions

NickA5582 said:
Hi, I decided to get a stubby squid instead of a cuttle and have a few questions.
How big of a tank will they need? Also, how deep of a sand bed should I have for one? Can more than one be in a tank? Are they as messy as octos? Should I get the tank sealed of with duct tape, or do they not try to escape? Should I put live rock in the tank, or just sand? Also, do they ship well? Thanks in advance.

Hi Nick

We don't get Rossia here but we have a relative Sepioloidea (different family but has similar behaviours), which we've held and bred. They need a minimum of 2-3 cm sand depth..not too coarse! You can have more than one to a tank and yep they can be messy eaters. I guess some live rock would be fine but remember that these animals need to bury so you will need more open space than with an octi. Not sure about the shipping. But I suspect they will be relatively sensitive as we have lost some transporting by boat from the catch site to the lab.

One thing you might want to consider is that Rossia etc are very nocturnal!

Cheers

J
 
Thanks Jean; anyone know if there are ways of identifying if its a male or female squid? Also, would my 20 gallon be okay to breed them in, and are they easy to take care of as baby squids?
Thanks again.
 
NickA5582 said:
Thanks Jean; anyone know if there are ways of identifying if its a male or female squid? Also, would my 20 gallon be okay to breed them in, and are they easy to take care of as baby squids?
Thanks again.

A 20 Gall should be OK but be prepared you WILL lose some! They're reasonably easy care...The biggest prob we have (apart from getting enough food.......they're little pigs!) is cannibalism, even at relatively low stocking densities (remember I'm not talking about Rossia here) and even when fed to excess.


Steve....have you held Sepioloidea ? Any ideas????

J
 
Any mysis or gammarus shrimp would be better than artemia, but getting them live is more tricky
 
Most shops should sell packets of frozen mysis/krill just dont know if juvs would accept them if they were dead. I know that the cuttles i had didnt take dead until they were about 50mm or so
 
With our Sepioloidea we used mysids, and mixed plankton (there are certain advantages to being right on the harbour!!) Nick I forget where you are but if you're anywhere near the ocean you can find yourself a brackish area (drains that open into the sea are good!) and catch your own mysids!

We've used artemia in a pinch but they MUST be enriched otherwise it's a bit like us living on a diet of lettuce :yuck: You can enrich using something like Selcon (expensive!) but what we do is feed the artemia (on artemia food and rice flour!) about half an hour before you feed the cephs. Then feed the artemia to the cephs but I have to emphasise this is emergency food only! It's not suitable for long term feeding.

Cheers

J
 
Hmmmm. I wouldn't waste my time with the Artemia, even enriched (I've never had any success there, and it's a lot of work and requires a lot of space for near-zero reward).

There's a new deeper-water species of Sepioloidea (as an aside, I believe all New Zealand species of Sepioloidea should be transferred to a new genus) that we were collecting 200-350 metres, mid water, that we were able to transport by air in bags of water with a squirt of O2 in there. Mortality en route was zero, but they were mature (or almost mature) individuals when we caught them, they deposited their eggs within weeks, and almost all died shortly afterwards (no maternal/paternal care). Ours were fed on a mixed soup of amphipods, macro-zooplankton and mysid shrimp. The tank was 5000 litres, with ~ 30 individuals in there; I'm not sure what part cannibalism played in eventual mortality, but from memory the number of whole animals (dead) that were removed from the tank added up to the number of animals placed into the tank (so I don't believe it to have been an issue).

I've not tried it myself, given we have live feed available, but can you picture one of the garden-sprinkling systems (the brand available in NZ is, I believe, 'Gardenia') of a hose into which you screw the plastic uprights and then a tiny wee end piece that directs the water spray in the direction you want. Well, get the plastic uprights and then turn them upside down in your tank (so that you are squirting water to the bottom of the tank), and have an end piece that directs water in all directions. This generates an upwelling that suspends dead food (mysid) fragments in the water column (works a charm for seahorse).

I don't know if it will work for squid; mine (at 3.5 weeks old) will still not take dead food; it might be several months before I can wean them from live to dead shrimp/fish.

Did you get the Rossia in the end??
Cheers
O
 
Thanks um..., looked up here and it says 46.4F-50F. What brand of chiller would get my temperature this low? Where can I order one from?
Also, what is the ideal temp for Eupyrma Scolopes, and is there anywhere I could order one other than the NRCC? And are they pretty much the same as Rosia (more than one in a tank, little rock with deeper sand bed etc. etc.)?
 

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