Thales,
This little guy only fed at night so I rarely saw him eating. I put varying quantities in the tank each night and watched to see how many were alive the next night. Six has been a consistent number for about a month with an occassional live one left. The shrimp are between 1/2 to 3/4 inches in length (cuttle mantle length of about 1 inch). There is a large peppermint shrimp (roughly 2 inches) in the tank as well but it was never attacked and I have only seen it eat dead. I know they will gang up on small fish if there is more than one but I don't think it was eating the smaller shrimp or attacking the cuttle (this rock is prone to aptasia and the pep keeps it controlled well). I would see the cuttle "touching" the cyclop-eeze when he was younger but had reduced feeding to only a small amount as the shrimp were being eaten and he stopped coming up to the cave front when I would put the pipette near the opening.
Stirring the sand and replacing 90 percent of the water has reduced the nitrates to almost 0 (as detected by my strips, not a reagents test and not an absolute test). The rock has been in the tank for several years but the substrate and filtration were replace 7-8 months ago (the cuttles have always been in this tank, even when in a net breeder). I am not fully convinced it was the water but I am at a loss to point to anything else. My last batch of shrimp did not ship well and there is a possiblity that the high death rate was due to pollution rather than heat but none of my other critters have shown a reaction (5 month old octopuses and adult dwarf lion fish). I wish George had been more successful with the captive raised shrimp out west. All shrimp, (this includes the ones from Mike at livebrineshirmp.com) I can find on the East coast are harvested in Florida from brackish water and there is always a possibility of pollution. At different times of the year there are obvious parasites on some of them but lately I have seen very few (some years they are excessive). I have started keeping them in an antibacterial but put them in a plain salt tank for at least 24 hours before feeding.
This little guy only fed at night so I rarely saw him eating. I put varying quantities in the tank each night and watched to see how many were alive the next night. Six has been a consistent number for about a month with an occassional live one left. The shrimp are between 1/2 to 3/4 inches in length (cuttle mantle length of about 1 inch). There is a large peppermint shrimp (roughly 2 inches) in the tank as well but it was never attacked and I have only seen it eat dead. I know they will gang up on small fish if there is more than one but I don't think it was eating the smaller shrimp or attacking the cuttle (this rock is prone to aptasia and the pep keeps it controlled well). I would see the cuttle "touching" the cyclop-eeze when he was younger but had reduced feeding to only a small amount as the shrimp were being eaten and he stopped coming up to the cave front when I would put the pipette near the opening.
Stirring the sand and replacing 90 percent of the water has reduced the nitrates to almost 0 (as detected by my strips, not a reagents test and not an absolute test). The rock has been in the tank for several years but the substrate and filtration were replace 7-8 months ago (the cuttles have always been in this tank, even when in a net breeder). I am not fully convinced it was the water but I am at a loss to point to anything else. My last batch of shrimp did not ship well and there is a possiblity that the high death rate was due to pollution rather than heat but none of my other critters have shown a reaction (5 month old octopuses and adult dwarf lion fish). I wish George had been more successful with the captive raised shrimp out west. All shrimp, (this includes the ones from Mike at livebrineshirmp.com) I can find on the East coast are harvested in Florida from brackish water and there is always a possibility of pollution. At different times of the year there are obvious parasites on some of them but lately I have seen very few (some years they are excessive). I have started keeping them in an antibacterial but put them in a plain salt tank for at least 24 hours before feeding.