My first baby bandensis, one of many I hope.

**octopi88** · Jun 13, '09, 1:10pm

did you spend much money on food

**corpusse** · Jun 13, '09, 4:07pm

Originally Posted by octopi88

did you spend much money on food

Of course, shipping to Canada is not cheap, or fun for that matter, I am hoping tuesday's shipment will not be delayed by customs.

Of course having a free supply in the frag tank helps but they are faster and pretty hard to catch.

**octopi88** · Jun 13, '09, 5:12pm

oh i see

**corpusse** · Jun 16, '09, 12:02am

Interesting update:

2 cuttlefish have escaped! actually 3 made it out but i recaught one!. One of the poor quality suction cups on the breeder net fell off so they were able to craw out and get into the open.

There is tons of food and very few predators (giant bristleworms and some lps frags) so I'm thinking at least one of the 2 will make it. If i ever see them I'll attempt to recapture but at the size they are thats very unlikely.

A new stalking video clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgm7HjW0LwE

if you get bored ff to about 1:50 this is the best shot of the strike ive gotten yet. As always watch in HD.

I'm wishing and hoping my mysids will not be delayed until tomorrow. I have a few left and two empty 15 gallon tanks ready to go for the myids. Baby brine hatching. They are actually much easier to keep alive then I thought they'd be and if 10% of the babies end up making it to a size that is large enough for my cuttlefish to eat good enough for me.

**octopi88** · Jun 16, '09, 1:20am

told you he looked like he was trying to get out!

**corpusse** · Jun 16, '09, 8:42pm

My shipment of mysids arrived 90% dead :( the water stank before even opening the bag.

I think I may have to stop feeding some cuttles as reed only ship tuesdays. I'll order more mysids from them since theirs arrived almost 100% alive.

I'm very sad.

Update, ive managed to make sure each and every one ate at least one hopefully 2 dead ones. I'm going to freeze the rest and hope they will go for it, and ration my live ones until next week when I'll go back to reed and have ordered 250 more live ones. These ones reproduced like crazy so I'll actually try and culture a few of them.

I also saw one of the "wild" cuttles, but given my lack of food I did not see the point in recapturing him.

**DWhatley** · Jun 17, '09, 4:57am

Want to try again on the video? What I came up with was a not so entertaining entertainer.

**corpusse** · Jun 17, '09, 5:37pm

Ok i fixed the link.

Thankfully Reed are shipping me 250 more mysids tomorrow. I am a bit concerned that I fed the cuttles the dead ones, apparently the other place I ordered from had some die off at their place and have generously offered a refund which certainly helps. I'd consider trying them again I think this was just bad luck.

Now I just hope customs doesn't delay the mysids for a 3rd time, I really don't want to have to go to the airport tomorrow as I have a lot going on.

**octopi88** · Jun 19, '09, 4:13am

thats intresting

**corpusse** · Jun 19, '09, 12:12pm

Got the new mysids alive and well. Some of the larger cuttlefish are now eating amphipods too. This will help stretch out the mysids who thankfully do reproduce a bit. In about 1-2 weeks they are about half the size of the full grown ones and the cuttles will eat them at this size.

I'm going to pick up some smaller frozen mysis all i have is PE and its just too big for them, but it will be interesting to see how long the training to frozen takes.

**corpusse** · Jun 21, '09, 10:56pm

I had a really tough weekend. Window fan fell and cracked the back pane of my frag tank :( RIP

all the cuttles survived and most of the corals but I'm now without a frag tank and will have to have another built. This was 48x18x8 so its not like I can walk into a store bring one home. I'll have to get something new custom made.

As for the cuttles they are now in a 10g that I used water from the frag tanks sump so no acclimation as its the same water.

I'm working on setting up their final home. The good news is I now have a bunch of live rock that is fully cured for years in buckets with powerheads I can use with a bit of new rock in the cuttle tank. I'll start all over with the frags once the cuttles are established.

The great news is many are now eating frozen food! I break the pe mysis in half and feed and more then 50% of then will eat it! So my new feeding schedule is twice a day first with the pe then add a few live mysids for the ones not interested in frozen.

**octopi88** · Jun 22, '09, 3:28am

nice job getting them to eat frozen

**lance** · Jun 22, '09, 3:32am

great to hear there eating frozen.

lance

**corpusse** · Jun 27, '09, 10:14pm

Just a quick update so everyone knows I still have them :)

Most are eating frozen. Maybe all of them. Unforunately with my frag tank cracking I don't have an established tank with enough room to separate them enough to tell for sure. So what I do is feed them frozen for 20mins or so blow them around until they stop grabbing them, then I throw in a few live mysids and if they get eaten right away someone didn't eat frozen. If they don't then they're full. They are certainly bigger then when they started hatching 3 weeks ago. Some more then others but all are still alive.

I'm thinking of switching them from the nets which are pretty algae covered to divided sections of a smaller tank either the 10g they're in now or a 20g. This will do them until the 65 is ready and they are big enough to go in at which time I will select 4-5 to keep and give (sell) the rest.

It's much more time consuming feeding them frozen as I have to blow them around but I have noticed a few cuttles are now grabbing them off the bottom of the net.

Once I get them out of the net more pics and videos to come, just in their current surrounds it's hard to get anything of high quality.

**lance** · Jun 27, '09, 11:35pm

great to hear there doing good can't wait to see pic's I noticed if you mix some frozen with live mysis it help's wean them onto the frozen a bit better and will be less work with blowing them around with a baster but you still occasionally will have to do that anyways but just though you might have some better success with the mix of frozen and live.

lance

**corpusse** · Jun 28, '09, 1:02pm

Originally Posted by lance

great to hear there doing good can't wait to see pic's I noticed if you mix some frozen with live mysis it help's wean them onto the frozen a bit better and will be less work with blowing them around with a baster but you still occasionally will have to do that anyways but just though you might have some better success with the mix of frozen and live.

lance

I started mixing them in this morning and got a few to eat them.

I'm currently feeding 1-2 times a day. Most days twice morning and night but occasionally only once if I'm really busy.

I cleaned out some cheato from my refugium today and before getting rid of it I collected 100+ amphipods of various sizes. The smaller ones are good for all of them, and the larger ones are no problem for the largest of the cuttles now that they have started to grow.

**octopi88** · Jun 28, '09, 6:49pm

awsome

**lance** · Jun 29, '09, 12:32am

Originally Posted by corpusse

I started mixing them in this morning and got a few to eat them.

I'm currently feeding 1-2 times a day. Most days twice morning and night but occasionally only once if I'm really busy.

I cleaned out some cheato from my refugium today and before getting rid of it I collected 100+ amphipods of various sizes. The smaller ones are good for all of them, and the larger ones are no problem for the largest of the cuttles now that they have started to grow.

that's great that a few ate them and that you got all them amphipod's for food as well keep me posted on your success.

lance

**corpusse** · Jun 29, '09, 10:48pm

So during tonights feeding I attempted a headcount and got 25 alive and well!

Tank dividers should arrive tomorrow once i get some out if their algae covered nets I will post some more video clips.