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cuddly cuttlefish

joelaw

Hatchling
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Feb 18, 2010
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6
i had planned on getting an octopus, but can find very few CB breeders, and decided on a cuttlefish, they look so much more cute and cuddly :cuttlezz:


I can get cuddle eggs from a pet shop a few hours away, so getting them is just calling ahead for pick up...
not 100% sure on species...they would come from paradise pets..
but before i buy one and start a set-up, i have a few questions

i was wondering is the set up pretty much the same? or is there more care?

Can a tank be smaller than 50g? or would that still what i want to use one?

Are cuttlefish like octopus when it comes to territory? or if im able to keep up on feeding
and clean-up, could i house more than one at a time?
 
I can't speak to the octopus portion of your questions, but I can provide perhaps a couple of cuttle insights. First - I got my eggs from Paradise Pets in TX and the eggs are Sepia Bandensis - dwarf cuttlefish. Lots of info on TONMO about them and great article in the stickies above. For Cuttlefish you don't have to worry about the tank being escape proof, they don't try to escape like an octopus does. I think that if you want more than one a 50/55g would be your best best. It seems that some people have started in 30s only to move up.

Have you already got marine experience? It certainly helps if you have kept a reef tank for some time so all you are getting used to are the unique needs of the cuttle. With regard to territoriality, you would be limited in the number of cuttles you can house in a given system - and that will be based on the species.

I hope this at least gives you a start, and :welcome:
 
thank you

for the info on the species,

i have never had any real exp. with a reef tank, i plan on starting a tank and give it a 3month cycle period to get everything as ready as i can....

i have experience in hydroponics...much like marine tanks from what i understand...if something is out of whack, your gonna notice...but on faster scale...
 
Have you given any thought to the overall system design? HOB filter, sump, protein skimmer, lighting, heater-chiller, test kits, refractometer? If you need to bounce some ideas...just post them.
 
I recommend that you change the filter by a skimmer.
Biological filters usually produce nitrates and are not as effective as a skimmer.

At most over, the skimmer produces excellent water oxygenation.
 
Any particular reason you are wishing to use mechanical filtration and biological? or are you not going to have live rock in the sump/tank? Or will you remove all the internal filtration of the canister and just fill it with rubble for a crypto?
 
This is where i get lost

so i can use a Skimmer in place of a filter? or is there a filter that can suit my needs? i must have misread the info on the
filter...its says it turns nitrites to nitrates so i know if thats true = a big NO NO...i still may be misreading it...

im not really plannning on live rock or would i want some?
what purpose does live rock have in the grand design of the tank health care wise?
 
Live rock is responsible for all biological filtration. (nitrites to nitrates to nitrogen)

The responsible for removing nitrate are Anaerobic bacteria who live in the rock.
The filter is not capable of removing nitrates.

The eskimmer is responsible for removing the proteins from the water, and yes, is the replacement of the filter.
 
Joe,
A marine tank is very different from any of your freshwater experiences and finding a book or searching the net for an explanation of a marine cycle is something you need to do before even thinking about the hardware and tank. Below is a simple introduction that does not cover caveats and details but may help with a few terms and basics as you read:

Simplistically, waste product becomes ammonia (deadly) and is not controllable through water change in anything but the smallest, daily changed system. Ammonia breaks down to nitrite (deadly but slightly less so than ammonia) through a biological process. Nitrite brakes down again into nitrate (not quite harmless but considered so in low concentrations and we live with a certain amount of it - ppm depending on what lives in the the tank). The conversion from ammonia->nitrite->nitrate is called biological filtration (vs mechanical filtration) and estabilshing the bacteria to quickly make the conversion so that you cannot detect the waste ammonia or nitrites is what is referred to as cycling the tank. It requires a build up of a sustainable amount of bacteria in some form of substrate (rock, gravel, sand, trickle filter, canister, etc). We still want to minimize the nitrate (never a "needed" chemical but its absence suggests the biological filter is not established) and other odor and clarity degrading elements in the water so we filter the water, usually through carbon (chemical filtration) often combined with a fine material material filter sock to remove larger particulates, and do large water changes to keep the system in balance. During a water change, it is also a good time to stir up the bottom substrate and remove settled waste to export some of the nitrate.

The protein skimmer (mechanical) removes another form of pollutants, not addressed by biological filtration by forcing the protein to bubble up to the surface and become trapped in the device.

How an aquarist sets up and maintains this "cycle" varys by personal choice and hardware constraints. Live rock is alive with bacteria, not the visable growth (visable growth can be as sign that it is alive internally but the growth has nothing to do with the term or process). Over the last 20 years or so we have found that rock sitting in the ocean for a couple of years contains and sustains the bacteria that converts ammonia->nitrite->nitrate better than man-made attempts using just canister or trickle filter style biological filtration. However, many people will use a combination. Setting up your filteration system requires some study and decision making before you decide on hardware.
 
thank you for a straight foreword explanation of the nitrogen cycle, so using a mix of live rock, and filtration used correctly promotes good bacteria growth?
helping eliminate waste?
 
Yes, but disrupting and exporting the settled waste (nitrates as well as other waste that has not been broken down) and removing and replacing water is still a routine necessity. Many pet stores will recommend using a bottled bacteria to instantly cycle a tank. If the bottle is still alive (often it is not handles properly) it will, indeed add bacteria. Unfortunately, a new tank won't sustain the bacteria growth and there is little, if any, advantage to using it.
 
If you are taking the approach to go slow and do it right, I would recommend that you get the sand and LR cycling without the use of the bacteria. I believe (not scientifically proven) that it seems to create a stronger culture and one appropriate for your system. You might want to do the shrimp in the stocking to start the cycle... I could never go for the add ammonia trick. Don't waste your money on the live sand, but do find a friend that will give you a cup of theirs to act as a starter culture.
 

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