Can paralarval octopuses survive overnight shipping? Or how about shipping small-egg masses prior to the second embryonic inversion? I know it's easier to ship cuttlefish eggs as opposed to cuttle babies.

Not at all an expert but I'd say eggs would ship better. On the down side of my 2 octos that have laid eggs it seems that the first couple if strings of eggs they each laid were infertile I don't know why.

Can paralarval octopuses survive overnight shipping? Or how about shipping small-egg masses prior to the second embryonic inversion? I know it's easier to ship cuttlefish eggs as opposed to cuttle babies.

Don't know. Try it both ways. :grin:


FWIW, cuttle eggs and babies ship with about the same ease.

I guess I should have said "I've read" instead of "I know" eh? :wink:

I really want to try raising small-eggs at some point. Every time I read "it can't be done" or something to that effect, it just drives me nuts. The engineer in me doesn't like that phrase.

The engineer in me doesn't like that phrase.


Neither do Hummelincki keepers!

So just give it a try. Nobodies done it yet (except in the lab) so it's not like you can do any worse. As for the sensitivity I had water issues while the eggs were in the tank and they still did fine. Once they hatched it was a different story. I'm a lot more ready this time out.

:grin:

The information is also changing pretty rapidly as more people are dealing with raising and shipping cuttles. Super cool time to be involved in the hobby.

Foods seem to be the biggest stumbling block - I was set up for rotifers and tigger pods when I had small eggs. Also, I have dosed my system with sugar to get the trates down which cause a bacterial bloom which fed a TON of tiny critters that I can harvest with a net off the front glass. It might be worth it to set up a tank somewhere with some live rock and bloom the bacteria to have a good food source. My baby bangaiis are eating just fine and if the little zebra octos hatch, I am not worried at all about them being able to find enough food.

It can be done! 5 years ago there were no cuttles in the US, while today... It just takes some one dedicated (dumb!) enough to keep at it!

Do you have surrogate urchins for your baby bangaiis? I keep annoying my boss about making some because we just got some bangaiis in to breed.

Nope. They seem to be doing just fine without them. From speaking with other breeders, they seem to like them for a day or so, then splitsville.

for me it is more the really really cute factor, but good to know.

Thread hijack for cuteness:

"is it safe dad?"

i can't wait to get to see that staring at the DO/temp probe in the morning.

Nice Thales!

Do you have some kind of recipe/documentation for this sugar treatment?

And here's another question, this article (http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/rearing.php) talks about artificially raising briareus eggs without a brooding female by suspending the eggs in a column of water using an aeration stone. No problem... just a fluidized bed. But is anybody aware of this being done with a small-egg mass?

It depends on what you want the sugar for...as a trate reducer I found it lacking. I was using a 1/4 tsp per 50 gallons.

There are a lot of people using egg tumblers for bangaii eggs, and their construction is varied. Check out http://www.marinebreeder.org/ for ideas.

Thanks for the link Thales! Lots of info to assimilate... :read:

When rearing eggs artificially, I'm assuming good water quality, high dissolved oxygen, and low or no light is best to prevent bacteria and algae from growing on the eggs? How about a UV sterilizer? Anything else?