Cuttlefish!!!

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 02:33 PM

Well guys, my local Petland finally came through for me on the cuttlefish after two months of waiting! They called me out of the blue at lunch today and said they had two cuttlefish in the store. More importantly, they were alive and kicking! They are about 4 inches big each, and I'm pretty sure they are both Sepia officinalis. I have some blue damsels in there for them to feed on, which they should be able to do since the damsels are about 1/3 the size of the cuttles. I may swing by my pet store and get some live shost shrimp as well. Anyway, I took some quick photos with my digital camera at lunch. I will post them on here if they can fit. More info, pictures, and movies to come! If you watch my web cam you may even see them!!!

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 02:39 PM

Cuttle in the bag getting adjusted to the temp and water.

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 02:40 PM

Both cuttlefish blending in with the live rock.

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 02:40 PM

Another photo of the two cuttles blending in with the live rock.

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 02:41 PM

A blurry close up of one of the cuttlefish staring at me.

OctoMonkey · 03/21/2002, 03:21 PM

at last!!!!!!!
keep us up to date and get some pictures happening!

C

cephalopoder · 03/21/2002, 04:06 PM

CONGRADULATIONS MIKE!!!!
Do you know if they cam in under a scientific name? Or a location?. I do know Sepia.bandensis is in the trade right now. But they only get about 3" full grown and walk along the bottom rather than swim. If you do have Sepia.o then it looks like you have a young ones and a good life ahead of them. Do you have Ceph World Guide? Great guide to ID the beasts. Keep us posted.
chris

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 04:39 PM

I talked to the guy at Petland, and he said that they came from Indonesia. He is going to double check on that though. I thougt they looked like Sepia officinalis, but Colin thinks their eyes and coloration is different. I'll try to get some better pictures when I zoom home from work today. I will try to take some movies with my web cam as well. I haven't seen them on the web cam, but they were last hidng out in the rocks right below where the camera view is.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

Rudiger · 03/21/2002, 06:55 PM

Thats great, keep us posted. I have a question though. You said you were going to get some ghost shrimp. I thought those were freshwater shrimp, so don't those die shortly after you put them in the tank?

Iwantacephalopod · 03/21/2002, 07:04 PM

Wow I am impressed. Those are beautiful cuttles. I think they look better than Sep. o's and your pictures are blurry!. Very very cute to.. makes want to hung em..ah Well I see your wait was worth it after all.
Very very impressed and great job once again.
I Hope you have a good time with your cuttles man, you waited along time for them,
Take care of your self,
Devon,
BTW: Hey chris on the chat room I left ona bad note..but I didnt leave because I was angry.( I got disconnected) sorry about that and thanks for the tips.

Iwantacephalopod · 03/21/2002, 07:05 PM

sorry I meant.. hug them..not hung them

cephalopoder · 03/21/2002, 07:12 PM

Mike
Sepia.o comes from europe the mediterranean and baltic seas. Sepia bandensis comes from indonesia. There are a few others that come from that area as well. As I mentioned before Sepia.bandensis in currenty in the usa trade.
This species is nocturnal and walks using its arms. Your pics look alot like the ones in the ceph world guide for this species.I think yours are too big though for this species.?
As far as ghost shrimp, they are fresh water but will live for a few days in salt. I feed them to my cephs at a treat now and then.
chris

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 08:42 PM

The cuttles have been hiding behind the live rock for a while now. I think it is going to take them a little while to get used to the tank. I have seen them move though, and they are not Sepia bandessis. They went zooming toward the ghost shrimp that I put in when I got home from work. All of my damsels are still there, and it seems like the cuttles are a little afraid of them at times. The cuttles are about 2 to 3 times the size of the fish, so I am not worried. There was one instance where 4 or 5 of the damsels went for the same shrimp as one of the cuttles. Well, the cuttle got it, but turned a dark black and retreated back behind the rocks. It seems that white or brown are normal colors and that dark brown or black are a warning. I'm not sure if cuttles are better day or night hunters, so it will be interesting to see howmany damsels are left in the morning. I saw each cuttle get two ghost shrimp, so at least I know they have eaten today. I took some more pictures, and I will post them here in a minute.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 08:53 PM

Here's the one that zoomed into the open to snatch a shrimp. It had some competition from the damsels, so it turned a darker color while it slowly backed up behind the live rock while chewing on the shrimp.

schmunkel98 · 03/21/2002, 08:54 PM

Here is the other guy, who has parked behind the rocks on the right side of my tank. He got lucky when a few shrimp swam his way.

OctoMonkey · 03/22/2002, 06:14 AM

Mike,
The head is definetly all "wrong" for officinalis. Can you get a close up of the cuttle yet? Iam interested to see the eyes..........

schmunkel98 · 03/22/2002, 07:57 AM

Colin,

I'll try to get some close-ups this weekend. I did notice that these guys explored a little more at night than they did during the day. Maybe they even snaged a few damsels while they were sleeping! I don't think they were walking using their arms though. Could you tell which species just by eye color?

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

schmunkel98 · 03/22/2002, 11:11 AM

Another aquarium place called me and said that they have 2 cuttlefish in! Can I fit 4 adult cuttlefish in a 135 gallon tank or should I just tell the store to put them up for sale? What if they are a different species? Can I mix cuttlefish species.? Please let me know ASAP!

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

cephalopoder · 03/22/2002, 01:05 PM

If they are the same species it would be fine. I am not sure how well different species would react. Is there a way you could devide the tank in half? I would think you have a chance of getting the same species from the other place. Sounds your LFS might have gotten them from the same wholesaler. You could also drive over to the LFS and see what they look like. Perhaps you could as Dr. Caldwell.
chris

schmunkel98 · 03/22/2002, 01:49 PM

I'm mainly concerned with the size of these guys when they get to be adults. I'm pretty sure my tank is big enough for 4 of these guys, since Colin had 7 in his 80 gallon. Anyway, the cuttles seem to be terrified of the damsels from what I can tell. The last time I checked on them at lunch one of the cuttlefish was in a corner of the tank and one was on top of a powerhead. They both freaked out whenever a damsel would come near. I guess I thought they would consider the damsels a meal not a threat. Will this change soon, or do I need to hunt the damsels down myself?

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

cephalopoder · 03/22/2002, 02:41 PM

The less stress on the cuttles the better. So if you have to bait litte hooks and fish for them I would get them out of there.
As far as cuttle size, with out ID ing the species you don't know how big they get.
They could be full grown now for all you know. A lot of cuttles stay rater small compaired to Sepia.o
chris

OctoMonkey · 03/23/2002, 11:03 AM

Hi Mike,

My tank is closer to 200 gallons if you include the sumps etc. I am down to 6 cuttles as of last week because one got eaten by the other. I never meant to get 7 i ordered 5 but Richard being such a nice guy threw in extra. My intention has always been to re-home most of them and keep a pair or trio for breeding so my stocking level was temporary at best. also remeber that i run a aqua medic 5000 skimmer. that holds and extra 7 gallons or so too and stands over 4 feet tall.

If your tank is mature enough and can handle the waste then go for it, i would. remeber they are way more messy than an octo to keep!

I would take those damsels out!

From looking at the pics again i would guess yours have a mantle length of 3" is that about right? The size guide of the mantle alone will help ID

Hope your having fun with them

C

Rudiger · 03/23/2002, 11:59 AM

i had the same situation a few months ago. A brand new octopus in the tank and I had not taken out my four damsels. I didn't realize the octopus would be so small. I had to take out all the rocks (except for the one the octo was in) and spend an hour catching all the damsels. Once I got to the fourth one I was actually pretty good at catching them

schmunkel98 · 03/23/2002, 04:59 PM

Well guys, I'm down to just one cuttlefish now. I have no clue what killed the other 3. That's right, 3 are dead. I decided to go ahead and get the other two that were at the other store. So, I had a total of 4 in my tank as of last night. This morning I saw one of them not moving, so I decided to turn the lights on to take a look. I found 3 dead ones right off the bat out in the open. I don't think they were picked on, because there were no signs of them being eaten. After searching around, I found one guy left alive. He is the smallest of all of them at about 2" mantle length. I find it odd that he made it out of all of them since the big guys should be able to hack it more. Anyway, I'm determined to get the damsels out now, even if I have to strip the tank bare. I'm going to try to bait them with small hooks first though. Below are the results of the tests I did on my tank after noticing the dead duttles.

Nitrite = between <.3 and .3
Ammonia = 0
Nitrate = 12.5
Salinity = 35 ppt
PH = 8.0
Temp = 72

I didn't think these numbers were that bad. The nitrite is up some, but that's it. I may do a water change anyway just to make sure everything equals out. Anyway, any ideas on what caused them to die? Was it just stress? I thought I did everything I could to make it stress free, short of getting rid of the damsels.

Mike

www.schmunkel.0catch.com

OctoMonkey · 03/23/2002, 05:13 PM

Sorry to hear about your crappy luck again!

I hope the other one survives!

Let me know if i can help.....................

03/21/2002, 02:33 PM	#1
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	Cuttlefish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well guys, my local Petland finally came through for me on the cuttlefish after two months of waiting! They called me out of the blue at lunch today and said they had two cuttlefish in the store. More importantly, they were alive and kicking! They are about 4 inches big each, and I'm pretty sure they are both Sepia officinalis. I have some blue damsels in there for them to feed on, which they should be able to do since the damsels are about 1/3 the size of the cuttles. I may swing by my pet store and get some live shost shrimp as well. Anyway, I took some quick photos with my digital camera at lunch. I will post them on here if they can fit. More info, pictures, and movies to come! If you watch my web cam you may even see them!!! Mike www.schmunkel.0catch.com

03/21/2002, 03:21 PM	#6
OctoMonkey Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Larkhall, Scotland Posts: 694	at last!!!!!!! keep us up to date and get some pictures happening! C __________________ ...and the Earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.

03/21/2002, 04:06 PM	#7
cephalopoder Premium Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: NH Posts: 898	CONGRADULATIONS MIKE!!!! Do you know if they cam in under a scientific name? Or a location?. I do know Sepia.bandensis is in the trade right now. But they only get about 3" full grown and walk along the bottom rather than swim. If you do have Sepia.o then it looks like you have a young ones and a good life ahead of them. Do you have Ceph World Guide? Great guide to ID the beasts. Keep us posted. chris __________________ Master the food chain and you can rear anything.

03/21/2002, 06:55 PM	#9
Rudiger Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: NY Posts: 355	Thats great, keep us posted. I have a question though. You said you were going to get some ghost shrimp. I thought those were freshwater shrimp, so don't those die shortly after you put them in the tank? __________________ Homer: "Lets just plop them in front of the TV. I was raised in front of the TV and I turned out TV." current tank: www.rpi.edu/~marioj/galleries/tank octopus tank: http://www.rpi.edu/~marioj/octopus Current Tank Info: 55 gallon w/ sump and fuge

03/21/2002, 07:04 PM	#10
Iwantacephalopod Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 37	Wow I am impressed. Those are beautiful cuttles. I think they look better than Sep. o's and your pictures are blurry!. Very very cute to.. makes want to hung em..ah Well I see your wait was worth it after all. Very very impressed and great job once again. I Hope you have a good time with your cuttles man, you waited along time for them, Take care of your self, Devon, BTW: Hey chris on the chat room I left ona bad note..but I didnt leave because I was angry.( I got disconnected) sorry about that and thanks for the tips. __________________ " Go Bannana"

03/21/2002, 02:39 PM	#2
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	Cuttle in the bag getting adjusted to the temp and water.

03/21/2002, 02:40 PM	#3
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	Both cuttlefish blending in with the live rock.

03/21/2002, 02:41 PM	#5
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	A blurry close up of one of the cuttlefish staring at me.

03/21/2002, 04:39 PM	#8
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	I talked to the guy at Petland, and he said that they came from Indonesia. He is going to double check on that though. I thougt they looked like Sepia officinalis, but Colin thinks their eyes and coloration is different. I'll try to get some better pictures when I zoom home from work today. I will try to take some movies with my web cam as well. I haven't seen them on the web cam, but they were last hidng out in the rocks right below where the camera view is. Mike www.schmunkel.0catch.com

03/21/2002, 07:05 PM	#11
Iwantacephalopod Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 37	sorry I meant.. hug them..not hung them __________________ " Go Bannana"

03/21/2002, 07:12 PM	#12
cephalopoder Premium Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: NH Posts: 898	Mike Sepia.o comes from europe the mediterranean and baltic seas. Sepia bandensis comes from indonesia. There are a few others that come from that area as well. As I mentioned before Sepia.bandensis in currenty in the usa trade. This species is nocturnal and walks using its arms. Your pics look alot like the ones in the ceph world guide for this species.I think yours are too big though for this species.? As far as ghost shrimp, they are fresh water but will live for a few days in salt. I feed them to my cephs at a treat now and then. chris __________________ Master the food chain and you can rear anything. Last edited by cephalopoder; 03/21/2002 at 09:25 PM.

03/21/2002, 08:42 PM	#13
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	The cuttles have been hiding behind the live rock for a while now. I think it is going to take them a little while to get used to the tank. I have seen them move though, and they are not Sepia bandessis. They went zooming toward the ghost shrimp that I put in when I got home from work. All of my damsels are still there, and it seems like the cuttles are a little afraid of them at times. The cuttles are about 2 to 3 times the size of the fish, so I am not worried. There was one instance where 4 or 5 of the damsels went for the same shrimp as one of the cuttles. Well, the cuttle got it, but turned a dark black and retreated back behind the rocks. It seems that white or brown are normal colors and that dark brown or black are a warning. I'm not sure if cuttles are better day or night hunters, so it will be interesting to see howmany damsels are left in the morning. I saw each cuttle get two ghost shrimp, so at least I know they have eaten today. I took some more pictures, and I will post them here in a minute. Mike www.schmunkel.0catch.com

03/21/2002, 08:53 PM	#14
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	Here's the one that zoomed into the open to snatch a shrimp. It had some competition from the damsels, so it turned a darker color while it slowly backed up behind the live rock while chewing on the shrimp.

03/21/2002, 08:54 PM	#15
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	Here is the other guy, who has parked behind the rocks on the right side of my tank. He got lucky when a few shrimp swam his way.

03/22/2002, 06:14 AM	#16
OctoMonkey Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Larkhall, Scotland Posts: 694	Mike, The head is definetly all "wrong" for officinalis. Can you get a close up of the cuttle yet? Iam interested to see the eyes.......... __________________ ...and the Earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.

03/22/2002, 07:57 AM	#17
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	Colin, I'll try to get some close-ups this weekend. I did notice that these guys explored a little more at night than they did during the day. Maybe they even snaged a few damsels while they were sleeping! I don't think they were walking using their arms though. Could you tell which species just by eye color? Mike www.schmunkel.0catch.com

03/22/2002, 11:11 AM	#18
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	Another aquarium place called me and said that they have 2 cuttlefish in! Can I fit 4 adult cuttlefish in a 135 gallon tank or should I just tell the store to put them up for sale? What if they are a different species? Can I mix cuttlefish species.? Please let me know ASAP! Mike www.schmunkel.0catch.com

03/22/2002, 01:05 PM	#19
cephalopoder Premium Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: NH Posts: 898	If they are the same species it would be fine. I am not sure how well different species would react. Is there a way you could devide the tank in half? I would think you have a chance of getting the same species from the other place. Sounds your LFS might have gotten them from the same wholesaler. You could also drive over to the LFS and see what they look like. Perhaps you could as Dr. Caldwell. chris __________________ Master the food chain and you can rear anything.

03/22/2002, 01:49 PM	#20
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	I'm mainly concerned with the size of these guys when they get to be adults. I'm pretty sure my tank is big enough for 4 of these guys, since Colin had 7 in his 80 gallon. Anyway, the cuttles seem to be terrified of the damsels from what I can tell. The last time I checked on them at lunch one of the cuttlefish was in a corner of the tank and one was on top of a powerhead. They both freaked out whenever a damsel would come near. I guess I thought they would consider the damsels a meal not a threat. Will this change soon, or do I need to hunt the damsels down myself? Mike www.schmunkel.0catch.com

03/22/2002, 02:41 PM	#21
cephalopoder Premium Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: NH Posts: 898	The less stress on the cuttles the better. So if you have to bait litte hooks and fish for them I would get them out of there. As far as cuttle size, with out ID ing the species you don't know how big they get. They could be full grown now for all you know. A lot of cuttles stay rater small compaired to Sepia.o chris __________________ Master the food chain and you can rear anything.

03/23/2002, 11:03 AM	#22
OctoMonkey Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Larkhall, Scotland Posts: 694	Hi Mike, My tank is closer to 200 gallons if you include the sumps etc. I am down to 6 cuttles as of last week because one got eaten by the other. I never meant to get 7 i ordered 5 but Richard being such a nice guy threw in extra. My intention has always been to re-home most of them and keep a pair or trio for breeding so my stocking level was temporary at best. also remeber that i run a aqua medic 5000 skimmer. that holds and extra 7 gallons or so too and stands over 4 feet tall. If your tank is mature enough and can handle the waste then go for it, i would. remeber they are way more messy than an octo to keep! I would take those damsels out! From looking at the pics again i would guess yours have a mantle length of 3" is that about right? The size guide of the mantle alone will help ID Hope your having fun with them C __________________ ...and the Earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.

03/23/2002, 11:59 AM	#23
Rudiger Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: NY Posts: 355	i had the same situation a few months ago. A brand new octopus in the tank and I had not taken out my four damsels. I didn't realize the octopus would be so small. I had to take out all the rocks (except for the one the octo was in) and spend an hour catching all the damsels. Once I got to the fourth one I was actually pretty good at catching them __________________ Homer: "Lets just plop them in front of the TV. I was raised in front of the TV and I turned out TV." current tank: www.rpi.edu/~marioj/galleries/tank octopus tank: http://www.rpi.edu/~marioj/octopus Current Tank Info: 55 gallon w/ sump and fuge

03/23/2002, 04:59 PM	#24
schmunkel98 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: The Colony, TX Posts: 254	Well guys, I'm down to just one cuttlefish now. I have no clue what killed the other 3. That's right, 3 are dead. I decided to go ahead and get the other two that were at the other store. So, I had a total of 4 in my tank as of last night. This morning I saw one of them not moving, so I decided to turn the lights on to take a look. I found 3 dead ones right off the bat out in the open. I don't think they were picked on, because there were no signs of them being eaten. After searching around, I found one guy left alive. He is the smallest of all of them at about 2" mantle length. I find it odd that he made it out of all of them since the big guys should be able to hack it more. Anyway, I'm determined to get the damsels out now, even if I have to strip the tank bare. I'm going to try to bait them with small hooks first though. Below are the results of the tests I did on my tank after noticing the dead duttles. Nitrite = between <.3 and .3 Ammonia = 0 Nitrate = 12.5 Salinity = 35 ppt PH = 8.0 Temp = 72 I didn't think these numbers were that bad. The nitrite is up some, but that's it. I may do a water change anyway just to make sure everything equals out. Anyway, any ideas on what caused them to die? Was it just stress? I thought I did everything I could to make it stress free, short of getting rid of the damsels. Mike www.schmunkel.0catch.com

03/23/2002, 05:13 PM	#25
OctoMonkey Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Larkhall, Scotland Posts: 694	Sorry to hear about your crappy luck again! I hope the other one survives! Let me know if i can help..................... __________________ ...and the Earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.