my cuttle fish jetted under a small cave in my live rock. it now has a 2cm long cut on its back on its back near the rear end. Im worried that it might get infected. is there aniway to prevent this from happening :?:

Due to in-fighting my cuttles received several scars... they do fade with time and i never had a problem with fungus. Remember that fungi are a secondary infection and that as long as the tank and cuttle are in good nick that it shouldn't be a problem.

Also, I'd rearrange/remove the offending item as it will no doubt happen again.

thx alot for the help.

Hi Colin,

How about butt burn? Do u know if they would heal as well?

Cheers,
L S

I just rearranged the live rock so that most of the sharp parts are not sticking out.

the cuttle does seem rather stressed out by this, it is normal rite?

I can say that I seen a cuttle 'get over' butt burn but i wouldn't say it healed. it was always very visible, and this was the first of mine that got cannbalised when they got a bit more territorial. basicly, it didnt look so bad after a while but was still quite visible.

Also, I think that one of the problems with cuttles is that they can get stressed and show it more visibly than octopus do. Especially in higher water temperatures and sudden movements/noises.

This is why i wont get any more cuttle (S. officinalis) until i have a plastic/fibreglass pond for them with a diameter of about 6 feet and depth of at least 3 feet. They need lots of room and cool water.

Just keep the lights dim and make sure there are no external bumps etc

good luck

C

Delurk...

A friend of mine has a reef tank and is very well acquainted with the owner of the best LFS in town. The LFS owner recently got a shipment of this magnetic tube that tank water flows through and has gotten terrific results with it. I'm not sure how it works, but it definitely has helped speed up the healing process in her hospital tank. The supplier of said magnetic tubes asked her to do an experiment with it & had her promise not to do any water changes on that tank. There is a tang in there that got a good chunk bitten out of it, and should've died, but a month later, you can't even tell where he got bit. :o The LFS owner said that the tank water is in great shape and hasn't needed to do a water change in months.

If anyone is interested in brand name, what it's called, etc., I can ask my friend.

Shannen

ok thx for ure help

Hi Shannen,

Hmm....magnetic tube....sounds like those magnetic bracelets that claim to cure all ills! But the tang testimony sounded good. Ya pray tell more on that please.

LS

In the case of Zoidberg, his rear end doesn't ' heal' but like a scar , the tip of his mantle always stays white.

Cephalopod wounds and infections have been successfully treated in my lab and the NRCC by injecting food items with a few ccs of chloromycetin HCL. Some vets have a form of Chloromycetin for cats, but the kind you need to get comes in an injection vial as a powder that you add purified water to. Trouble is, this stuff isn't easy to come by. You will have to convince a veterinarian to write a prescription (or possibly order it for you) and then the trick is finding a pharmacy that can get it- the only one in my area (Suburban Washington DC) was a hospital. I found working the Jedi Mind Trick on my Veterinarian was easy- she was more than delighted to add an octopus to her dossier of patients.

For butt burn it worked like a charm. The gaping gash never healed up, but the infection was halted and the cuttle lived out a reasonably normal life. Cuttlfish in captivity are also prone to a cateract-like infection of the eye, which eventually leads to blindness. Cholormycetin will slow the advance of the infection, but can't seem to stop it. I had a cuttle lose sight in one eye, which severely affected it's depth perception. For the last couple month of it's life, that particular cuttlefish had to be handed it's food. It couldn't target even a dead, frozen shrimp lying on the sand.

At the NRCC, I understand that often important project animals are commonly prophylactically protected against infection with this medication.

Good Luck! Jimbo

Thanks, Jimbo, you've provided us with some very useful information. This is the first time I've heard of this medication being used, and I'll try to find out more about it's use at the NRCC and report back.

Nancy

Jimbo, I'm having that problem, my cuttle's right eye has a cataract ( see thread on s.latimanus). Is this possible to get rid of?

Okay, the magnetic tube thingy is called an eco aqualizer. It's pretty new, here's the link:

http://www.ecoaqualizer.com/

The guy marketing them has had mixed reviews, but a couple of the folks I have talked with think they work.

One thing tho, if you install it, you need to monitor your water quality pretty closely, because it increases the efficacy of additives. My friend with a reef tank had a pH spike because he forgot to adjust his calcium reactor when he installed the ecoaqualizer.

Here is a link to reefcentral's discussion on it:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196868&highlight=ecoaqualizer

Hope this helps,
Shannen

Okay, I just read the reefcentral's 5 to 10 pages of discussion on the ecoaqualizer, and I just want to state that I am not trying to troll this list, nor am I working for the company that sells them. Hope nobody is upset or riled up about this, just trying to be helpful. If anyone is genuinely interested in the apparent results the people I know are getting, I will be happy to post them.

Cheers,
Shannen

As of the last time I really looked into the eye infection problem in cuttlefish, there was no solution. Sometimes a cuttle would recover, most often they do not. Other than damaging vision, the cuttles generally remain very healthy. but have to be personally fed.

I hope nobody's getting bent out of shape about the magnet stuff. I don't buy into magnet therapy for anything. But I think if something works for one person, they certainly should not be scolded for sharing.

Rock On, Jimbo

Sad to say I just noticed Trusty is starting to have cataract on its right eye. It is a very sudden onset as two days ago it manages to catch a shrimp in no time at all.

Water wise I have been quite disciplined doing 10-15% water change every week. Trusty used to have butt burn but it has healed completely, you can't see any scar at all, so I thought it must be liking the water conditions enough.

It's 14cm in mantle length now, I hope I could continue to handfeed it long after it is not able to hunt.

:( LS

Sorry to hear that senescence may be catching up with your cuttle... Lowering the temp may slow it down a bit too.

Hi Colin,

I was just thinking that since I got Trusty when it was pretty small 6 months, and that Sp. Latimanus can grow quite big, that Trusty would have another 6 or more months of natural life span.

LS

I suppose there is a good chance that the cuttle isn't latimanus or it is quite common for them to not reach their maximum size in captivity.

Even in the NRCC the cuttles mature at a smaller size than in the wild