wow cuttlefish for sell in the usa

[vegetell425]

i just got me a cuttlefish at my local pet store. its been 8 months since there last ones. and you wont believe the price. a whole $20. yep twenty dollors. im so excited.

 

[Colin]

...............and?

You gonna tell us more?????????

What species is it?
size? etc etc...............

dont keep us waiting now!

 

[vegetell425]

lol...my local fish store can id worth anything. :x .So im you guys can help me. I need to know what the best stuff to get him to eat. Like there favorite thing. I also got any octopus to. Suppossly its a pygmy but once i can see him in the light i can see if he is a baby bimac.`well sorry for no info last night but i was acclimating and couldnt really give any info. I buy stuff at night and acclimate with the lights off and leave them off till morning so go here for a picture of the cuttlefish. http://briefcase.yahoo.com/vegetell425 . i have a video of him swimming but i dont know where to upload it so i can show you guys. I found the octopus this morning Hiding in a tiny creavise in the rocks. There both seem fine this morning which is a big relief.

 

[Colin]

Looks to me like Sepia bandensis.

Cant seem to find my ceph guide book today (????) but from memory they are from indonesia, get to about 3" mantle length and as usual have a fav food of crabs and shrimps! they are very sensitive when it comes to shipping so make sure that the water stays perfect and do regular tests. They have a tendancy to 'walk' rather than swim and are more secretive than other Sepia. several people I know have had this species for a few days and die mysteriously, so be very carefull with them. It is possible they were cyanide caught or simply too stressed through travel.

BTW might be a silly question but I hope you havnt got them in together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wont be long before the one or the other gets eaten!

Mixing octos and cuttles doesnt work, it has been tried by other TONMO members and ended in dissaster!

cheers
C

 

[vegetell425]

Well that answered a question of curiosity. No there separate don?t worry. My local fish store was out of crabs and crustations so I got hermit crabs and snails. I?m going to head down Monday that?s there big shipment day.

 

[Colin]

Not sure if the cuttle will eat snails and hermits unless you take them out their shells first. not an easy task.
My cuttles never showed any interest in snails or hermits.

Soem of them will accept bits of fish, but it takes time for a cuttle, especially a wild caught one to come to terms with this.

Also from experience a cuttle eats a LOT more than an octopus does! So get plenty crabs and shrimps when you go to the store, but you will need to try and feed it before Monday.

cheers
C

 

[vegetell425]

i already attempted when he was up and about with frozen krill. i thawed it first then tried with some feeding prongs. Where i work has raw shrimp. Could i try some of that. I do have a peppermint shrimp in my seahorse tank i can sacrifice for him. Is ghost shrimp a good choice. I can get a crap load of them. I used to buy 100+ a week for my wc seahorses for around $12. And they have them in at my lfs. I totally forgot about them and i can run down today and get some. He wouldnt eat a gold fish would he?

 

[Colin]

I would try to avoid goldfish as much as you can, i used them in emergencies and once the cuttles were bigger and used to different types of food.

ghost shrimp will work but theyare short lived in a sw tank so remove them if they go uneaten, the cuttle might not recognise dead food.

The raw shrimp would also work if you can encourage it to eat using feeding tongs or similar but it will be tricky to not spoook the cuttle, worth a try tho..... might be best to have some water ready incase of inking???

The peppermint shrimp probably wouldnt last long but id leave that as a last resort

so maybe try ghost shrimp first, one guy at least had sucess with bandensis and ghost shrimps

C

 

[corw314]

Colin - I noticed you said avoid goldfish. Is there a reason???Possible copper use???

Carol

Cuttlefish is great!!!! Had trouble figuring out what he was at first! Amazing!

 

[vegetell425]

colin. he seems to be sleeping alot. i thought the light may be to bright. So i dimmed it and he still is sleeping.

 

[Colin]

Hi Veg,

yeah, bandensis is more of a nocturnal species than the likes of officinalis but with time it may come round. you are right to keep the light dim, at least to start with. Id even be temepted to just use the ambient light of the room to start with.

Best time to feed would be late evening just before bedtime!

C

 

[Colin]

Hi carol

I have had to use goldish in the past when i had all those super-hungry cuttles to feed but I will deffinetly avoid them now! Yes, the copper used to treat these goldfish for ich etc could be harmfull, but apart from that there are quite a lot of comments on the web about there body fats being the 'wrong' type for marine animals.

As a side note i once had a red tail catfish that was given to me from a customer. It had been fed on feeder goldfish since it was a baby and was approx 24" when i got it and the fish was distinctly gold! The entire body had a gold sheen and was a gold tail catfish! All the carotene must have passed over in the food!

C

 

[vegetell425]

something spooked in the night and he inked. the water had a dark haze this morning. i was scared and look in and luckly he is alive. i did 50% water change cause after doing a 25% it was still cloudy so i did another 25%. all seems to be going well but the eating and i may no why now because he is nocturnal. hmmm i hope everything goes well.
colin do you know anything about chambered nautilus's. i think they need cool water and thats all i know. ive searched to find info but came up with none. thx

 

[vegetell425]

cuttlefish video go here
Multimedia

 

[Colin]

Hi Again Veg.......

Cuttles do ink a LOT more than octos do in my experience... what temp is the water? Warmer water makes them more likely to ink. You will need to invest in a good skimmer... I ended up having to get an Aquamedic 5000... that skimmer holds about 5gals in its reaction tube!

You should use a good quality carbon as it adsorbs ink too.

nautilus, as far as i think, shouldt be sold/kept by hobbyists. they require very cool water and a deep (approx 48") deep tank. Thats one for the real specialists. They have been reffered to as 'floating snails' before as they dont do very much!

Thanks for the cuttlefish video, i have emailed a friend to figure out if its bandensis or not...
cheers
C