As I setup my new cuttle tank. I thought about turning my current 10gal freshwater tank into a "food farm" where i can keep~breed ghost shrimp as food.

These can be fed as food can they not?

Hi Milchy,

Sorry but it's a bad idea to feed freshwater critters to marine ones, they tend to be too fatty and have other nutritional problems too. Generally speaking feed marine to marine and fresh to fresh!!

Cheers

J

Jean,

Do you know of any studies on this subject?

:D

Not off the top of my head, although I have read about this somewhere (I will look it up but my memory..................?) It'a also from personal experience and from the collected notes of a 75 year old public aquarium. Our marine animals at the aquarium do very poorly on freshwater food, they don't gain weight (often they lose it!) they become lethargic and more infection prone.........they just don't stay as healthy.

J

Thanks Jean,

I believe that is my experience too (it may be the case with frozen food long term as well) - I would just love to see something non anecdotal about it! :D

Damn. Oh well.

Again anecdotal - but a friend who has a lot of experience with rearing marines had similar problems using freshwater gammarus compared to the marine species.

sry to steal the thread, but octopets sells saltwater molies, would you feel those would be a sound live food as the main staple of the cuttles diet.

I think that fish is fine as a supplement but not as a staple diet. Its such a shame that cuttles are so tricky when it comes to feeding :( really, live shrimps and crabs are the best

Are there any cheap saltwater shrimp which i can use to feed?

so on this trend im guessing that crayfish would not be a good choice

IM CONFUSED!!!!!!!!!

http://www.stickycricket.com/aquarium/movies/cuttle.html

that video... the shrimp in that... what are they? They look exactly like ghost shrimp?

A plug from your Webmaster:

ShrimpStuff.com (http://www.shrimpstuff.com) offers live marine feeder shrimp shipped directly to your home or business, overnight via FedEx (US shipments only). The shrimp are aqua cultured and shipped from Nevada by SeaWater Express. ShrimpStuff.com offers exclusive, preferred rates.

A plug from your Webmaster:

ShrimpStuff.com (http://www.shrimpstuff.com) offers live marine feeder shrimp shipped directly to your home or business, overnight via FedEx (US shipments only). The shrimp are aqua cultured and shipped from Nevada by SeaWater Express. ShrimpStuff.com offers exclusive, preferred rates.

If there was shipping to Australia I'd buy right away!

IM CONFUSED!!!!!!!!!

http://www.stickycricket.com/aquarium/movies/cuttle.html

that video... the shrimp in that... what are they? They look exactly like ghost shrimp?


Snacks! They are ghost shrimp in the video, but they were not the only live food they were eating. I like to use the ghost shrimp when filming because they don't 'go to ground' like the local crabs do.

I jury is out on the saltwater guppies from octopets, but Colin sums up the general feeling about them. Cephs may eat lots of different things, but that doesn't mean they are good food. James Wood was telling me about raising baby octos on frozen food. They ate it, but didn't survive very long, whole the ones eating live food survived much longer.

If there was shipping to Australia I'd buy right away!

Where are you? Anywhere near the coast?

Where are you? Anywhere near the coast?

10minutes from the beach.

hmmmm interesting.... my lil piggy ate a fresh water guppy and ghost shrimp in the same day now seems a lil lazy..... was wondering why...

what kind of crabs would you feed then?

10minutes from the beach.

can you not have a wee crab catching expedition, there would likely be marine shrimps in rock pools etc too. A baited fish trap (a small one!!) can also be used to catch a variety of crusty scavengers, also going out at night with a bright torch and a dip net should be profitable!!

J

well it seems that ghost shrimp are more of a snack then a good meal... junk food for cuttles.

mine is at an odd size now..... a lil too big for pods, but not ready for bigger crabs (are fiddlers ok, or something else?)

ones, but how do you get them out of their shells..... without killing them (killed one tryin :( )

what are you trying to get out of it's shell??????? A crab??????? (excuse if this is a dumb question I haven't had enough :coffee: yet!!) If its a regular crab you will always kill it getting it out of the shell!!! If a hermit you can drill a small hole in the back of the shell and tickle the crab with a clean paintbrush or place it in a container of seawater and then place the container of seawater in another one with hot water in it. The crabs will climb out of their shells (we do this to have high school students study shell selection in Hermits)


With regular crabs your cuttle should be able to deal with the shell itself!!

J

yea sorry... hehe hermit crabs.. i tried to get one out and i killed it... then managed to get another out but there was a small peice of shell my cuttle wanted to eat it, but didnt...... was almost pokin at it, kept feeling it up with one arm..... then i got another hemit out safe and sound and put it in, but now the cuttle had no interest in it. :( i am goin ot go hunting today for some small shore crabs.... mine is getting too big for pods.

How big is your cuttle right now? From your description it sounds like shore crabs would do fine, if you know any place which sells live saltwater baitfish, those would do great as well (provided they're not copper-treated). I noticed that some hermits will crawl out of their shells if held in the air for a minute or two.

yea, i was able to get the hermit out, but the cuttle was not too interested.

i was able to find some small shore crabs. i put one in last night....... WOW the cuttle seemed to like it..... hehe

My Cuttle is about 3/4" long now.. maybe bigger. Seems to be doing well... Pods seem a little too small for it, but hard to find small enough crabs. It is sort of in-between being able to eat crabs and still needing Pods. but since i was able to find tiny crabs i am feedin a mixture of booth.

how long have you had your cuttle

Mine came from Righty via Paradox, i have had it since Aug 2nd, it was around 3 weeks old then. So i guess it is close to 2 months old.

yea i just got mine from righty today, but it did eat a pod right away

maybe a little late but I have found a quick way to get those pesky hermits out of their shells is to get a lighter. If you heat up the point of the shell they will crawl out the other side really quick. They get out before they get burned so dont worrie about hurting therm (before you make them food)

Chip

good idea... it didnt seem too interested in deshelled hermits, it went after the first normal crab very fast, but now seems uninterested in crabs... so still on pods..... for now.

I have had a lot of luck feeding almost any picky marine animal with live marine feeder shrimp and I also sell it at my store...

I have had a lot of luck feeding almost any picky marine animal with live marine feeder shrimp and I also sell it at my store...

:welcome: to TONMO!

You might want to post contact information over in "Marketplace," since people are often looking for good sources of live ceph food, particularly if you're willing to ship mail-order...

thezooexotic,

Will you be putting live food pricing and ordering on-line? We are always looking for new live food suppliers.