Cuttlefish update

[lion king]

This guy hatched about 4 months ago; the size of a 1/2 of a tic tac when born, now around 2". He never comes out in the light; I've even tried moonlights, no go. I observed him with a low light flashlight. He's learned the searchlight means food and comes right out to hunt. He would take the food right from my hand, he seems to know me and is not afraid of me. I've tried skipping feeding to try and encourage him to hunt during the day, but still no go. He's in a macro algae tank with alot of red macros, he flashes alot of red and is interesting to watch.

 

[andrewkw]

So you just have the one? I've hatched Sepia Bandensis a couple of times. They were super fun to keep, but super expensive to feed. Also the short lifespans suck, so enjoy him while you can. It's interesting he hides all day, mine were always out in the open. Never had any hiding issues.

 

[lion king]

I originally had 4 that hatched. I believe 2 of them were cannibalized, as 2 were growing at a much faster rate Then I had a pair, and one got sucked into the overflow of a hob filter. I cleared the algae from the intake during maintenance and didn't consider the increase of flow. So now I have just the one. I have never seen him except in total darkness using a low light flashlight.

 

[andrewkw]

Weird. What are you feeding them?

I used to spend a hundreds of dollars a month when they were babies on live mysid shrimp shipments. Part of the extra cost was I am in Canada and having them shipped from Florida wasn't cheap. When they got to be too big for mysids I fed them shore shrimp (marine version of ghost shrimp but look exactly the same). Then finally for the last few months I'd just feed them uncooked grocery store shrimp from the grocery store. One of the times I raised them I tried to cheap out and gut load ghost shrimp since they were available locally for cheap but those cuttlefish never grew as big. Fed with a feeding stick. I'll post a few of my old videos if you'd like to see them.

 

[lion king]

I feed 6 mouths live food, I use ghost shrimp and mollies. He eats both. I raised him in a macro tank that was initially stocked with amphipods and copepods. My initial investment was about $50 total from hatchling to about 2 months. Then at about 2 months I had the 2 eating small ghost shrimp. This guy now cost me about $3/week to feed. I find the most prevalent information online on these guys to be totally off base. There is so much of a less expensive and easier way to hatch and raise these guys. I'm likely not going to do it again but the method I used just needs a little tweeking. I would use a smaller hatch out tank and be more careful of flow and I would separate ones of equal size from those smaller. Using macro tanks with copepods and amphipods are the way to go, not mysids and all that that entails.