classroom cuttles

hobogato

O. vulgaris
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Mar 25, 2008
Messages
94
i teach high school environmental systems class. this year, we are changing part of our curriculum to a marine captive breeding program. here is one thread on my local reef forum with the details on the setup and the things we will be doing with it:

http://maast.org/forums/showthread.php?t=53730

part of the program will include cuttles, so i thought i would start a thread specifically for them here.

we received 10 eggs today. they are supposed to be captive laid eggs, but i am not sure i believe that.

here they are acclimating
DSC05532.jpg

here they are in the tank
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they were ordered by one of my local fish stores thru one of their suppliers. they were listed as captive cuttle eggs on the order list, and came in as Sepia sp. i am guessing they are S. bandensis since they are so round and about the size of the eggs my first cuttle pair had last year. the only thing that seems off is the fact that they are all separated out.
 
You can pretty much guarantee they are S.bandensis, and if they came through an LFS supplier that they are wild caught. Get ready for lots of food!
 
Thanks for thinking about doing a TONMO journal. You might want to invite the parents to the journal on occassion if you have email addresses or at least suggest the kids show them the journal when there is an interesting post. I would have loved it if my kids had had the opportunity to show me what they were doing.
 
d - i have links to each thread about the classroom setup on my teacher web page for all parents/students to access. hopefully eventually some of the students will register on some of the forums and participate in the discussions.....
 
here are the pics - i snapped them as we moved the babies to their new net breeder

in a glass holding bowl
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closer
DSC05571.jpg


plastic transfer dish - relatively easy to use and little stress on the babies, although one did ink a bit because i moved a little too fast.
DSC05575.jpg

closer
DSC05576.jpg


couple of buddies in the new net breeder - notice the net is inside out to keep them from getting tangled in the seam
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thru the glass pic
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all six after they settled in under the chaeto (i carefully moved it to take the pic from above)
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well, mixed news this morning. last week, the two smallest hatchling cuttles died and this morning only the largest two of the initial 6 were still alive. at least one of them is eating tho, since i put in several live mysis on friday and none are left now.



also, three of the remaining four eggs hatched this weekend, so hopefully they will all make it.
 
just got back from feeding the school critters and cleaning the lone cuttle's net breeder (yes, only one of the nine that hatched made it to easy feeding size). it was really mad at me and inked quite a bit. :smile:

also dropped off the salt water acclimated black mollies, they will be food makers for this cuttle and the other three i have coming in this week.

(side note on some of the other classroom critters)
the tesselated blennies have rearranged their tank changed into their dimorphic colors again and the dark blue one is really fat - probably gravid.

also, the female skunk cleaner is very gravid.

didnt have the camera with me today - will try to get some pics tomorrow.....
 
sad morning. two of the three new baby cuttles that came in last week died between Sunday and this morning. also, the hatchling that was doing great and was about the size of a dime died over the same time period. everything else in the entire system looks good.
 

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