Cuttle egg adventure

**DWhatley** · Jul 11, '12, 3:31pm

Thank CF! Tank and Cassy's hatchlings' jounal is very short

Where almost all cuttles are raised from eggs and their journals are clustered, octopuses are never brought in from the wild that way so the raised from egg sub journal (Cephalopod Care > Octopus Care > Raising Octopus from Eggs )will have the experiences or links to the primary journals if the keeper did not break out the hatchlings from the parent. There is not likely a lot of cross similarities with the cuttle hatchlings and the octos as most are small egg and the challenge is number of days alive where with cuttles it is more how many survive the first two months and then on through senescence.

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 11, '12, 4:02pm

I see, I see. Thank you anyways.

**lilalancarey** · Jul 12, '12, 4:02am

Still have 3 cuttles and hoping my food comes in friday because i havent gotten a tracking number from UPS from sachs yet so im a little worried.

I started hunting down some people who may have some shrimp for sale in my area through manhattanreefs.com its a wonderful website for local ny reefers (mainly ny, parts of jersey, some from other states chime in and participate as well), very active forum with a huge user base, anyway. Someone said they have live mysids living in their refugium so i may go pick them up tomorrow if they are available, since i just PMed them and its 4 am so i am not expecting a response for a few hours. lol

Thats all i got for now besides the fact that im happy they are alive and well, they are just hiding under the dead acro the eggs came in, change colors here and there and move a small amount, i think once the food comes they'll lighten up a bit and come out and play =]

**lilalancarey** · Jul 12, '12, 4:06am

btw instead of the pvc pipe i am thinking of cutting the bottom of a plastic cup off and using a rubber band to keep my seive net on the bottom of it. and i can seive it through my 40g breeder when i have mysids to separate them by sizes.
Currently thinking on how to expand that idea to have a smaller seive to catch the babies and somehow do it that way instead of leaving the babies behind in the tank i will have already collected them Brainstorm in progress, that just seems so much simpler than my pvc idea i had in my head.

**DWhatley** · Jul 12, '12, 4:56am

Toying with concepts, think about limiting one side of the breeder mysid netted with holes large enough for the babies and the other sides the same small size as the baby container so that you can have a larger breeding ground and a smaller collection area. I am not sure how you will manufacture it but it occurred to me to suggest having only one area open for hatchling exit might help your design. Do keep in mind that the more space you can give the adults, the better the chances of them not eating each other.

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 12, '12, 10:46am

Originally Posted by lilalancarey

Still have 3 cuttles and hoping my food comes in friday because i havent gotten a tracking number from UPS from sachs yet so im a little worried.

My cuttles didn't even attempt to eat (as far as I know) untill yesterday: day 5

**lilalancarey** · Jul 12, '12, 11:07am

Yeah its going on day 3 and 4 for me, i know 2 of these hatched on sunday and 1 on monday so well see.

I also got good news, my package of mysids is at my local post office, not sure if its out for delivery though but im going there soon to pick it up anyway, dont even have the 40g breeder set up yet, oh well, guess i got some work to do today! at least i dont have to make ro/di for them, tds of water @ my house is 53 out of the bathtub (nyc) ((ill change my profile now to have my location, i know it gets asked of everyone i thought i had already had it there.)) so ill just fill upp about 15-20 gallons throw a powerhead in and some salt to 1.014 and im good to go.

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 12, '12, 12:16pm

Sounds good. The mysid I'm keeping in the two gallon cube has lasted me 6 days now. I probably have about 50 left. All I use for my mysid is water and aeration.

I remeber I read somewhere (I don't remeber where) about mysid culturing. It invloved a continuous siphon into seperate tanks from the main mysid tank. Each siphon was covered with small micron netting (large enough for the baby mysid to get through, but too small for the adults). This way the babies were transfered to a different tank, to save them from the adults. I think this is what you are trying to do, but in one tank, right lilalancarey?

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 12, '12, 1:12pm

Also, does anyone know much (or links of articles) about catching mysids yourself? This Saturday I'm going kayaking in some saltwater marshes, thought I might be able to catch some for my cuttles. Any thoughts?

**lilalancarey** · Jul 14, '12, 2:41am

Nothing too exciting going on, i saw one eat yesterday, i must have just missed it attacking the mysid because i saw it eating it right after. Umm i have 3 live cuttles and they do nothing but hide under their eggs and arent much fun to watch lol but ill be patient, they have only been alive for 5 days now 1 of them 4 so it is still extremelyy early for activity. Will post picturtes when i can get a goos shot of them but until then i guess ill just keep everyone posted^^

How are your cuttles deepblue?

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 14, '12, 4:51pm

Originally Posted by lilalancarey

Nothing too exciting going on, i saw one eat yesterday, i must have just missed it attacking the mysid because i saw it eating it right after. Umm i have 3 live cuttles and they do nothing but hide under their eggs and arent much fun to watch lol but ill be patient, they have only been alive for 5 days now 1 of them 4 so it is still extremelyy early for activity. Will post picturtes when i can get a goos shot of them but until then i guess ill just keep everyone posted^^

Good to hear you are having such good fortune!
Our cuttles are exact opposites! My cuttles are now on day 8. They are definately a little bigger, but the weird thing is, they havent eaten any mysid. I havent had to add more mysid shrimp to the net breeder since day 1. There is still four mysid in there.... How could they be growing if they arent eatting? I have witnessed hatchling 3 attempting to eat with his feeder tentacles, but he misses and then appears too bored or tired to try again. They both still spin around and act crazy; they do barrel rolls, loopty-loops, and any other thing that can be accomplished on a rollercoaster. Also, their "crazy" movement seems to increse when the lights go out.

**lilalancarey** · Jul 14, '12, 6:48pm

Lmao, maybe they are eating copepods and ampipods that get into your net? I had a MONSTER amphipod it was almost the size of a cuttle get itno my lil tank for them, i was scared, he was so fast and strong lol it looked like he could eat the cuttle before the cuttle ate him, i immediately got him out and threw him into my overflow! , btw i had to get him out twice, once i put him back intot he tank but it wasnt enough. Your cuttles sound funny to watch lol maybe they are shooting steroids when your not looking and trying to get that beach body going for the end of summer so their not eating?

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 14, '12, 10:41pm

I have no idea what they could possibly be eating. I think your theory of them shooting steroids may be plausible lol.
Tomorrow I think I may go out to try and catch a few wild amphipods. Ill see if I can interest the cuttles with them. Ill try and get a video of the cuttles "going crazy" tomorrow so that you guys can see what Im talking about.

**lilalancarey** · Jul 15, '12, 3:32am

Im sure this doesn't even need to be said but make sure if you do put amphipods in there put only small ones. When i had a big one in there i was so scared that i could not leave it in there, i haddd to take it out, it was so fast and brolic looking it probably would have never been eaten by the cuttles and only hurt my cute little babies, i hope my mandarin eats that bad boy soon, hell probably grow afterwards.

I think the helicopter motion is probably their vewrsion of working out and their not eating because they are trying to keep their figure for the beach when they get a little older ;) lol

Try and geta video of them doing the helicopter motion, i am sure i asm not the only one who is interested and it could help with some advancement in the cuttle keeping world. Maybe it is somethi9ng very uncommon but not dangerous to their health and other bandensis keepers who experience this one day should not be alarmed and it will be something they grow out of? How many hatchlings do you have, three? And two of them are exhibiting this behavior?

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 15, '12, 9:31am

Ya, I'll post a video shortly.
I only have two hatchlings. Out of the 17 I was given, only 4 were fertile; One hatched and died within an hour, one died in the egg, and then the two that hatched and going crazy (but still alive). Because of the misfortune, Mike from NYaquatics offered to give me half off a second batch, if I was interested. He said they should be instock on Tuesday. I'll get him to send me a few pictures of the eggs and check to see if there are actual cuttles inside this time.

**lilalancarey** · Jul 15, '12, 2:16pm

Alright, thats nice of him, i have 3 cuttles, one was trying to get out of its egg two nights ago, it popped half way through but saw today that it couldnt make it out, i still have 3 eggs left that i have seen cuttles in but havent seen them moved or really looked, ill wait a few more days before i open them up with something. Dont have too much hope for those. At least you still have cuttles, better than sitting with none. Sorry to hear your abyssmal 2/17 ratio =/

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 15, '12, 2:44pm

Ya, so I'll be ordering some more cuttle eggs on Tuesday. The cuttles are rather calm today. I haven't seen them go crazy once. I expect them to, though, when they lights go off to night. So hopefully I'll be able to get a video then.

**DeepBlueWonders** · Jul 15, '12, 8:41pm

Im not sure if this is clear enough to see (thanks to low quality iPad camera), but here is the video. You should really be able to see him going "crazy" at the 1 minute mark, but even then, it is supressed and not nearly as crazy as usual. If you guys have problems seeing the video, let me know. I might be able to find a better camera if needed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oordo...e_gdata_player

EDIT: Video should be fixed now.

**CaptFish** · Jul 15, '12, 9:32pm

The link is not working for me.

**DWhatley** · Jul 15, '12, 10:50pm

The videos don't play well (perhaps at all) on a PC when the address is for the mobile version

. I am not sure what happens when viewing the site via phone. I modified the video for PC viewing, hopefully the result is what you wanted, otherwise, repost the mobile link.