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S. Officinalis and GPO?

austin8362

Cuttlefish
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Jul 13, 2009
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I'm currently a student in the Oregon Coast Community College Aquarium Science Program. For our life support class, we are building a temperate cephalopod system. The system consists of two 250ish gallon fiberglass tanks.
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In the first tank, we plan on housing locally collected juvenile GPO's before they head to the Oregon Coast Aquarium or the Hatfield Marine Science Center. In the second tank, we have been discussing keeping S. Officinalis. Does anyone see any problem keeping them in the same system? Thoughts on the optimal temperature to keep both happy?

On raising S. Officinalis, how different are they from raising bandensis? The amount of food is not an issue as we are located on the Oregon Coast,:smile: but I want to make sure I have a steady supply of appropriately sized foods.

In the beginning I'll be raising these guys in our smaller coldwater invert system, but how many adults would be appropriate in this size tank?

Thanks!
 
Sadly, I can be of NO help but wanted to encourage you to post updates on both tanks. It would also be terrific if you could get the students to join and make notes on the keeping aspects :wink:
 
Hmm, definitely nice looking setup. I think the officinalis will probably out grow those tanks quickly depending on how many you are looking to get. They get fairly large, and live about a year with the cooler temps. Max Size can definitely be about a foot or so. Nothing really different with raising them as opposed to bandensis except for the size and amount of food you would need. They can be conditioned to frozen shrimp pretty quickly once they mature and can be fed live foods in tandem with frozen shrimp.

Not sure I would recommend officinalis for that size of tank...

Greg
 
Let me add to the last post.

At max size, I think more than 5 would push that system and space there. What are your plans for them? Are you getting in eggs? How many? What about more eggs?

Greg
 
I am also a student in the AQS program and am working on our new cephalopod system with Austin. Thanks for the input so far! We will definitely post updates as the system progresses and the animals arrive!
 
I agree with Greg, in that the officials would out grow the tank, but they would work well for bandensis. GPO don't need much just make sure the inlets and outlets have covers, I usually use treaded fittings/bulkheads so that I can screw on a spray-bar and outlet cover as they can pull out a slip fitting easily. And as always make sure you have a very heavy lid. Have a prefilter to catch the uneaten food/food parts/shedded sucker disks use a large biofilter (I usually tell people to double the size of what they think they need) and a protein skimmer is always helpful. If the GPO inks in the tank you might have some problems just due to the small size of the system.
 
Sadly, I can be of NO help but wanted to encourage you to post updates on both tanks. It would also be terrific if you could get the students to join and make notes on the keeping aspects :wink:

My classmate @AQStudent and I will be posting regular updates on the tank build, and the animals progress. :smile:

Greg,

The plan is to import eggs through Coldwater Marine Aquatics. Then raise them in our smaller coldwater invert system, and transfer them to this system. Any extra or aggressive animals would probably be moved to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, or Hatfield Marine Science Center. Do you think a group of 5 would do well in this setup?
 
Would a small group (3-5) do well in this setup? If not, do you have any other suggestions for more appropriate temperate cephs? We have a ton of rubescens available locally, but these seem pretty large for them, I don't think we'd ever see them.
 
I am a bit late to the party, but let me suggest someone near you that might be a good resource for advice on keeping Sepia officinalis. Nathan Tublitz at University of Oregon uses them in his research and I believe keeps a breeding colony in Eugene. If you haven't already contacted him, it may be a good person to talk to in relatively close proximity.
 
I am a bit late to the party, but let me suggest someone near you that might be a good resource for advice on keeping Sepia officinalis. Nathan Tublitz at University of Oregon uses them in his research and I believe keeps a breeding colony in Eugene. If you haven't already contacted him, it may be a good person to talk to in relatively close proximity.

Thank you! I knew someone at U of O was keeping them, but I wansn't sure who or how to contact them. I'll shoot him an email.
 
All of the plumbing is done, the chiller is running, and we are cycling . Today, I added seeded bio media and dosed some ammonia. :smile:

Currently, I'm running the system at 63F to speed up the biofiler, but I'm trying to decide on the temp to run the system to keep both species happy. I'm thinking around 53F, at the upper end for GPO and lower end for Officinalis?



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Hey,
I'm a little late to reply, but hopefully it'll be helpful to someone!
In terms of temperature for S. officinalis, we keep ours at 20c as eggs as this ensures they develop quickly, we maintain the animals typically at 15c with a bare minimum temperature of 11c, any lower than this the animals struggle to survive.

I don't know what these would be in Fahrenheit (sorry).

Eggs shouldn't be kept above 21c as this can cause developmental anomalies, and we'd recommended lowering the temperature gradually to 15c once eggs start hatching.
 
Actual calculation: Celsius * 1.8 +32
21C = 69.8F
20C = 68F
15C = 59F
11C = 51.8F

For those of us who relate only to Fahrenheit I use a quick in my head estimate of Celsius to Fahrenheit:
Celsius * 2 + 30
(not useful for setting fish temps and only works for a limited typical weather estimating range)

21C ~ 72F
20C ~ 70F
15C ~ 60F
11C ~ 52F

Edit: Opps, I see @tonmo beat me to it.
 

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