Baby cuttles doing fantastic!
 

Well I little while ago (4 weeks ago) I came across a batch of cuttle fish eggs. I thought I would take the time (and money!) and devote it to hatching them and raising them.
They started hatching about 2 weeks ago and I have been feeding them live pods from my tank and been buying tiggerpods for them. so far I have about 20 hungry little babies.
Well I am VERY HAPPY to say that I finally have them eating frozen food! I have been trying to target feed them arctipods and I finally have them all eating them! Every night I creep up to the tank, about an hour after i turn the lights off, and with an eye dropper I feed the little guys. It takes me about one hour total, that includes scooping any uneaten food out later.

Just wanted to share that!
Wish me luck!:biggrin:

Neat, do you have pics? Do you know what type of cuttlefish they are?

gratz on getting them to eat frozen, that's pretty sweet :)

keri, They are Sepia Bandensis, a dwarf cuttlefish. They only get 4 inches full grown. I am really excited about them.

I want to find another clutch of eggs so that I could try breeding them myself.

I'm just curious if there would be a demand for them or not. Right now I am just raising them for the challenge.

I will try to get some photos tonight, Ill turn a powerhead off so I can take it from above at night with a flash, I should be able to get a decent photograph.

excellent, waiting for the pictues

If you can ship I'd be interested in a couple in the future.

What's their lifespan 1 year?

the short lifespan is the only downside to cuttles.

Would 1 be happy in a 27g long species-only tank? I've always been fascinated by cuttlefish, I'd consider buying one in the future.

I do plan on selling them soon. Its hard to feed this many little mouths. They would be happy in a 27 Gallon Long. THat would be great.
They do only live one year. It is a downside, but imagine the fun you will have in that year.

... Wow, I really want one. How can we make this happen?

Just Pm me with some information about how you plan to keep one and etc. what you think is a fair price etc. :smile:

Will they eventually eat frozen/thawed food? Or is Live an absolute must? (I'm thinking of my location)

Sigh...I would love to have one...but I'm pretty sure he would end up as food unless he was almost full grown. Squid/cuttlefish are a major part of my fish's diet...I bet a couple of them would love the real live thing!

Mine right now are eating frozen, but it takes a while because i have to make them look alive, I have heard that they will eat frozen. But Im really not an expert on them lol. I dont want to give you any information that may not be right. There are a few great articles on the internet, just google: Sepia Bandensis.

Ok, I've been looking on TONMO... I do live/work near the water so maybe local small crabs/amphipods etc would do as well?

We used to go down to the ocean & collect lots of pods from the tidal pools. Cuttlefish love these.

I would definitely want two. A breeding pair would be awesome.

michika if you get some i will be at your window every weekend watching :lol:

Wow Catherine it sounds like you have a stalker.

lolz, i believe its spelled stalker :P

See what happens when I leave my computer! I miss all the good stuff.

I'd be charging admission to my place, $5 entry, BYOB.

Thanks for the spelling check Karazy thought it didn't look right.

lol, np ;)

just a heads up, J&L just got some egg clusters in tonight.

Hey Sunce - I think baby pictures are in order!!

So how was the process of hatching the eggs? I am really curious about doing this one day. Ever since we saw some of the bigger ones while diving at the GBR a few years back, I have wanted some! How was your experience hatching them???

These were the ones we saw:

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...G_2331copy.jpg

Hey Guys, these are the only pics I could get, sorry they are not super good quality or anything. Camera isn't that great.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/att...1&d=1223672560


http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/att...1&d=1223672560


http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/att...1&d=1223672560

i have some dwarf cuddles in my tanks, i think there is only one per tank. they live on live food, mini shrimp and such. its really cool to see them search through the sand for food, make little blinds for hunting, and cruzing about, sometimes changing colors like crazy. if they get scared the little ink cloud is neat too. all around a great addition, better then a octopus, since he wont escape, but i think i could have done much better with them if i knew what was coming. the egg clutch was kind of dumped on me last minute. plus now the one in my sump is getting kind of big (+2") and i fear whats going to happen to the little clowns in there :mrgreen: but i haven't seen the guy in the sump in a while and the shrimp count in my sump is up so hopefully hes full already :razz: as for hatching them for me, it was easy. i hatched them at home and at the LFS i worked at, so the eggs are very hardy. my only suggestion is have lots of good foods, preferably live on hand for the hatch, and hatch them in something easy to catch them in afterward, they are incredibly hard to catch in even small tank with nothing in it.

aww, I can't see the pics (broken) maybe I'll try on another computer

The link below is from reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-10/feature/index.php
In short they require expert care, cooler temperatures, higher salinity heavy duty skimmers and larger tanks without fish and most inverts except urchins and starfish.

If well kept, they live for only a year.

great article! :)