WELL IT ALL STARTED WHILE I WAS VISITING THA LFS WHEN I SPOTTED A NAUTILUS WOW I THINK THAT WAS THA MOST EXCITING MOMENT OF MY LIFE OTHER THAN MY CUTTLE HATCHING! HE WAS SO LIVELY HE SHOT FROM CORNER TO CONER OF HIS TANK UNLIKE ANY CEPH I HAVE EVER SAW AND HE WAS AT A REASONABLE PRICE OF $60 I THINK THAT WAS FAIR CONSIDERING HIS SIZE THA SHELL WAS APPROX. THA SIZE OF A DINNER ROLL! SO I JUST HAD TO LET THAT OUT ONE WORD AMAZING I THINK IMA RECONSIDER MY NEXT CEPH AND TRY AND AQQUIRE ONE OF THESE BEAUTYS IF YOU HAVE NEVER SAW ONE THEN I HOPE YOU DO I HOPE EVERY CEPH ENTHUIST GETS A CHANCE TO WITNESS ONE IF YOU HAVE ALREADY THEN YOU HAVE PROBALLY FELT THA EXCITMENT HUH! THA NAUTILUS IS BY FAR THA COOLEST CEPH EVER! :nautilus: :grin: :nautilus:

Nautilus are really cool, especially the baby ones. When I was working at the Waikiki Aquarium, I got to see one right after it hatched. It was about the size of a quarter and looked just like an adult, just in miniature. It was sooooo cute. It ate dead shrimp right away...

Yes, nautilus are exciting to see the first time. They're interesting to observe, but for the most part they don't do much, not like a cuttle or an octopus. I had the opportunity to see a whole tank full of them at the NRCC and they weren't nearly as interesting as the other cephs. They require a chiller and are considered difficult to keep. Not recommended, actually - I think you'd be happier with octos or cuttles.

You might look up past posts on nautilus because we've discussed them before.

Nancy

Not many people have had any luck keeping these in a home aquarium. They like cold, deep and dark tanks, probably supplemented with a lot of calcium.

Given that, the fact that it is in amateur captivity means it is already fated for death--if you've had success with cephs before and have a chiller, and its going to die anyway, I'd be inclined to say "why not?"

I understand one of the GARF people has kept nautilus succesfully, so you might try to give them an email. They seem like real yahoos from their website; but sometimes yahoos know more than you expect them to :)

Dan

Yeah octo oakley, you would be a lot better than the random off the street who is gonna send it to its death.
However, promoting the LFS's activities through buying it sends a mixed message.

OO your avitar is an amazing pic is it real?

You should give it a jam!!! I dont think I've seen anyone on this forum with a nautilis, and variety is the spice of life.
I spose a tank suited to one has to be nice and deep, and if you buy them young they have problems with their bouyancy (I believe).

Feelers does have a really good point. Do you know the LFS people well? If you convinced them that it is immoral for their distributor to give them nautilus and describe all their special needs; maybe you could also get them to build a special tank setup for it there at the fish shop, using your ceph experience to help, of course. A lot of fish shops love having a special display like that and they probably have the resources in terms of materials lying around and wholesale access to what they don't have. That would probably be the animal's best shot at life.

Dan

Wow! I would have thought that a lot more people would have been surprised to find a nautilus in a LFS. I know that I sure was surprised to hear about it. To my knowledge (and cephbase is down again so I can't expand it) nautilus are usually around Papua New Guinea, and the region. Is that accurate? Where else are they? I'm just assuming that any that end up in an LFS are going to be wild caught and am curious as to how far they've travelled in order to make it to a LFS. If the NRCC has a whole tank of them, do they captive breed them?

Cheers!

THA LFS ITS IN I ACTUALLY I GOT MY FIRST JOB THERE AND THA OWNER HAS HAD EXPERINCE WITH CEPHS AND SUCSESS SO THIS NAUTI WILL NOT BE SOLD TO JUST ANYBODY ACTUALLY HE IS GOING TO TAKE A VISIT TO EXAMINE THA TANK THA FUTURE OWNER PLANS ON KEEPING IT IN AND HE WILL NOT SELL IT IF ITS NOT SUITABLE FOR IT! AND RITE NOW ITS IN A 200 G. TALL CUSTOM WITH MINIMAL BUT ENOUGH LIGHT, PROPER CHILLER AND FISH FREE WITH A TWO WAY MIRRIOR FOR THE VIEWING TO REDUCE STRESS HE ORIGANALLY MADE IT FOR A GIANT PACIFIC HE HAD OWNED BUT IT WAS AT THA END OF ITS LIFE SPAN SO IT SHORTLY AND SADLY DIED AFTER RECIVING ITS NEW HOME! AND HE SUPPLYS THA NAUTI WITH CALCIUM SO IT SOUNDS LIKE ITS IN A NICE HOME! BUT YEAH LIKE ALL YOU SAID NAUTIS ARE HARD AND I HAVE HEARD MANY STORYS OF DEATH TO THEM BUT REMEMBER NOTHINGS IMMPOSSIBE I MEAN IF THA NRCC CAN KEEP THEM SUCSESSFULLY WHY COULDNT AN EXPERINCED CEPH OWNER? I KNOW IT TAKES ALOT BUT DONT YOU ALL THINK ITS POSSIBLE JUST CUZ VERY FEW HAVE HAD SUCSESS DOSENT MEAN A FEW WILL NOT COME ALONG THAT WILL IF THEY GOT THA RITE SETUP I DONT SEE WHY NOT!

BUT YEAH LIKE ALL YOU SAID NAUTIS ARE HARD AND I HAVE HEARD MANY STORYS OF DEATH TO THEM BUT REMEMBER NOTHINGS IMMPOSSIBE I MEAN IF THA NRCC CAN KEEP THEM SUCSESSFULLY WHY COULDNT AN EXPERINCED CEPH OWNER?

Keep in mind the NRCC--both of them--are playing by a different set of rules (little political jab, there). A home aquarist buys a rectangular glass or acrylic aquarium because the primary goal is display. These materials are expensive to make a load-bearing structure out of, so home tanks are small. While a home aquarist tries to keep a nautilus in a 200 gallon tank, the NRCC probably has them swimming in 1000 gallon vats.

Dan

YEAH DAN I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING I WAS JUST MAKING A POINT THAT NAUTIS AREN'T IMMPOSSIBLE TO KEEP THERE JUST SUPER HARD AND REQUIRE SPECIAL CARE! BUT YEAH I SEE WHAT YOU MEANT YOUR RITE A 1000 GALLON WOULD BY FAR MAKE A BETTER HOME FOR ONE!

If you check out the Waikiki Aquarium (http://www.waquarium.org/research/cephalopod_biology.html) page you can see a few of the challenges they had to overcome to keep nautilus' happy (and also a really cool pic of a young one!).

They vary the temperature in the tank from 57 to 72 degrees F every day!

Dan

WOW THANX FOR THAT LINK THATS AMAZING THAT BABY NAUTI IS THA COOLEST PIC! BUT YEAH THATS ALOT OF STUFF NEEDED TO KEEP IT HAPPY AND DOING GOOD! WELL THANX AGAIN!

Hey main board, they have once successfully raised nautalis in a research facility in Japan I believe. Out of 90 hatches they managed to get 2 to full growth.
The pressure of the water is very important to a young N's development, and if they are raised in a low pressure environment they kind of hang out of their shell, and the actual structure of their spiral-shell has different measurements from a non-captive one. They end up just dieing despite not having any visible sympotms.

Wierd! These guys are just so complex its really amazing. So if you raised a nautilus under pressure, does it always have to live under pressure? (hehehe, jingle coming to mind). I mean the wild caught adults that are in aquariums and the like, are all those systems pressurized? or do adults do fine adjusting to lower pressures and its just the development of the young where pressure is key? And environmentally, why do you think that nautilus young need pressure? In the wild do they grow up at depth? Thats a little different than the ceph norm of shallow babies due to better food resources. Hmmmm....very interesting.

Cheers!

Check out the link I gave earlier in the thread. The Waikiki aquarium has succesfully bred nautilus in unpressurized aquaria. Two of ten larvae survived past 1 year. I don't have anything peer-reviewed in hand, but I'm sure a quick literature search would find all sorts of details. They published a description of the larvae in Science.

Dan

This old thread (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2557&highlight=NAUTILUS) had a discussion about deformitys in the shell of captive raised Nautilus, unfortunately the pictures are missing :cry:

And This Thread (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3361) about raising eggs of Nautilus

Ok, here is my memory of the Waikiki Aquarium's Nautilus breeding program (I was a student aquarist from 1989-1991). The adult Nautilus are not pressurized, just kept cold and dark. Some of the adult Nautilus are kept behind-the-scenes in aquaculture containers with a lid (in other words, a big dark box). The Waikiki aquarium has an open sea water system, they have a pipe out in the ocean that draws their water into the facility. When the adult Nautilus laid eggs, the eggs were "tagged" with date when they were laid. All the eggs were then put in an aquarium behind-the-scenes and left alone. The tank was not cleaned or touched in anyway. The temperature happened to be the ambient temperature of the incoming sea water. Sometimes, Dr. John Arnold would examine one of the Nautilus embryos to watch the development (he was my advisor for a short while, long story...).
One day, an aquarist happened to notice that you could see a Nautilus shell through the egg, and soon after the Nautilus hatched.
I contacted a friend who still works at the Waikiki Aquarium and I am waiting for him to get back to me with more specific parameters on their current Nautilus exhibits. Hope this helps!

My aquarist friend from the Waikiki Aquarium finally got back to me. His advice - see if you can convince the LFS to donate the Nautilus to a local aquarium (in Utah, is that the Living Planet Aquarium?). That way the animal goes to a good home.
His other advice was that the water temp. should be 60-65 F and that they need lots of crab and shrimp (with shells) to get the calcium that they require. He also said that they have a tendency to chew anything that is in the aquarium, like plastic airline tubing and plastic plants...
Any word on whether the Nautilus is still for sale?

It sounds like the Lfs knows what its doing - a specially deisgned and chilled aquarium, if only every lfs could be as good as that one.

Ive heard the do well in a 75-120 gallon tank, but I read this long ago.

the nautilis that I've seen at the monteray bay aquarium seem to be living in a fairly small tank (rough est. 30-40 gallons), and doing fine

Keeping one of these would be really cool, I recently to give it a go but I thibought a 120G(Tall) tank about last week, i'd like nk im going to read a lot before I try, I'll contact the local stores that have them and see what kind of conditions theyre in and whats the most comfortable kind of condition for them. I really cant decide between an octo or a nautilus, but Ive always bveen fascinated with a Nautilus just never thought they were sold or at the least capable of being alive in a tank. Do you guys think I should give it a go? If I do suceed in keeping one for a year or more I will provide you guys with weekly logs of what Ive been doing to manage one this long and such.

WOW CTTLEFISH ARE YOU SERIOUS THATS SOUNDS CRAZY FOR MONTERAY BAY YOU WOULD THINK THEY WOULD HAVE A SUITIBLE TANK FOR IT! SO ANYWAYS I GOT HOLD OF THA LIVING PLANET AQUARIUM TODAY AND TALKED EM INTO SETTING UP THERE JELLYFISH EXZIBIT FOR THA NAUTI AT THA LFS SINCE THERE JELLYS GOT SHIPPED TO A CASINO IN NEVADA , AND THEY WHERE WILLING TO SETUP IT AND POSSIBLY GET A COUPLE MORE, THA LFS IS WILLING TO DONATE THERES TO THA LPA SO IT WILL BE REALLY COOL IF ALL GOES WELL THEN WE WILL HAVE A NATI, CUTTLE AND OCTO EXZIBIT GOING! WOW I HOPE THIS IS MAKING SENCE TO YALL HA HA ITS KINDA HARD TO EXPLAIN BUT I THINK I GOT IT!

I contatced the LFS that sold them in my area he said he gets a lot of them. They are very inactive and active in dark ares he reccomend 65-70 degrees F and suggests 55G but said my 120G was more than enough.

Octo Oakley,
Thank you so much for doing all of that work on behalf of a Nautilus. I hope it works out.

I was at the Reef HQ aquarium in Townsville (Queensland AUS!) a few years back and they had a tank of Nautilus............weirdest thing I've seen! The tank was very dimly lit with red bulbs and the nautilus would drift in and out of view seemingly at random!

www.reefhq.com.au

J