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bandensis courting video (thrid edit: BABIES EATING GUPPIES)

Thanks everyone! Quick update - I put them together again and it wasn't wonderful. They chased right away (I think they were hungry). After a few minutes I decided to put them back into their respective homes - my mistake. I should have let them be in the homes they were in, but I thought they needed to be in the surroundings they were used to. During the attempts to shoo them around, I got major ink. Major. Did I mention major. From both of them. Got them settled, and broke out the Magnum 330's, carbon and a micron filter - and was very please I shelled out the buck for a big skimmer. 7 or 8 hours later, the tank was clean and everyone ate.

NOW THE GOOD NEWS.

I picked up three more cuttles today, and they are acclimating as I type. The LFS had 5, but two of them are big, so I didn't get them.

Colin, according to ceph base Bandensis has an adult mantle length of 6 cm. This is straight from cephbase, their arms are usually 3-5 cm. Head probably about 2. that's a total of 9-12 cm, about 5-6", which looks right for my guys. According to my friend in Flordia who really seems to know what he is talking about "Morphology for bandensis is perfect too, especially in the pic in the cuttle page of your website: the common name is stump-spined cuttles"
But then who knows? I am just hoping that they are all the same species - they really look it.

Anyway, should I start a new thread about this or just leave it here?

Thanks for the input, and please keep it comming.

Rich
 
Sepia Apama, the giant cuttles can grow to about 50cm ML, their arms also get up to 50cm which is perhaps why they look so different sometimes.

I have no doubts those are bandensis righty, other than bandensis, what other species come in?
 
Just bandensis, and I had to push to get the to order them.

Oh, they also have the blue dots around the fin that are described for bandensis.
 
Excellent news on picking up some more, obviously the chance of getting a definite pair goes up the more individuals you get....

Mark Norman states in his book that bandensis:

Size: body (and shell) to 5cm

so, okay adding arms and head part reach more than 5cm.

How are the new additions doing? Are you collecting them from the shop as they come into teh country or are they first being acclimatised to the shop and then to your tanks??? Just wanting to know how you are doing it as it may help other future members.

Leave new posts here as it keeps the subject very tidy and easy to point newbies to the thread rather than having it jumping about.

I am going to do my moderating just now and go back to delete all the spam... Ant.

On a personal note I have done a lot of bandensis research and emailed a few people over the last couple of years and the variety between the individuals has been great. Some pics of old bandensis may still be on this site's early threads and will be on RC ceph forum. I am still thinking that we may be looking at several different species, or at least regional variation. I find it very interesting and no doubt that as a group we will iron it all out soon :smile: Well done everyone
 
joel_ang said:
Regional variation? Something like the seabadgers? :lol:

Dammit Joel, i just deleted all the other nonsence from the thread!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Yeah i mean in their morphology, they have a HUGE range... look at the blue ring octopuses fpr example.. as time goes on more and more species are spilt up as people reseach them.. if you look at Norman's book you'll see lots of species called Sepia sp. or Octopus sp. Even the fact the mimic and wunderpus dont have proper scientific name yet means it is very easy to imagine that bandensis is a catch all name, Also Octopus bocki, and aculeatus are being researched into the species...
 
That kinda reminds me of seahorses, not too long ago, a whole bunch of them were under one name histrix i think, until recently.

Guess its the same for cephs right now, things will get sorted out once identification is more advanced. But with their seemingly broader range of colour changes :rainbow: and slightly smaller size, I'd like to find that Sepia Sp one day
 
The new ones seem to be doing fine. I had the LFS call me when the cephs arrived, and they left them in the shipping bags until I got there. I acclimated them for an hour by adding about 1/2 a cup of water to their bags every 5 min or so (the bags were big). Then I let them go and they all ate within 5 minutes.

This morning I don't like the color of one of them, but its early yet.

Thanks for all the input!
 
I'm sure that's a better way to do it, if you let the LFS acclimatise them its just more stress... hope all goes well :smile:
 
The tank has four compartments and there is a 20 gallon tank plumbed into the system.

P3090005.JPG


There is more info here:

http://www.stickycricket.com/aquarium/cuttle/cuttlecondo/P3090005.JPG
 

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