[Cuttlefish Eggs]: Cuttle babies

We just got a 140 gallon set up and I tried to talk my girlfriend into a group of cuttles (or a vulgaris!) but it looks like she's set on another seahorse/pipefish tank. It's used and we found some scary stuff in it (like a rusty razor blade) so I don't know if it would be ceph safe in the first place so I'm not pushing too hard.
 
I fed frozen mysis again this morning to see how many would eat it. Every cuttle in net 2 ate at least one of the frozen shrimp, and some in net 1 also ate it. I'm getting shore shrimp this week for the bigger guys. I ordered some more mysids for the smaller ones. I hope this is the last time I have to order the mysids.

Not much has changed as far as behavior.
 
Two deaths today. I don't understand why; all the cuttles have been looking really good. Both that died were smaller so maybe it was a food dominance issue. Cuttles are nearing 1 inch. All are still eating frozen but I give them live too.
 
Thanks Monty.

Head count tonight comes to 10. I thought I had 11; I will have to track down what happened to the other guy. There are 4 in net 1 (with 1 runt), and 6 in net 2. I switched from H2O's mini mysis to PE Mysis Shrimp a couple of days ago and the cuttles are extremely responsive to the change. They go after the PE much faster than they did the H2O, and don't even need coaxing. This is a good thing since there is about 10x the protein in the PE food.

I am currently uploading a video of them eating tonight that is quite amusing. Photobucket is taking forever though and I will send it to Tony to be put into the gallery as well. I will update with the video when it is up. And this time it won't be crappy quality :biggrin2:.
 
Today my oldest cuttle is 3 months old! He is about 1.5-2 inches and male. He is by far the biggest of the bunch. All the other ones are around 1 inch.

I had a couple of people come over on Thursday to check out my cuttlefish. They were very amused by them. They bought one of them from net 2 so now I have 9 cuttles total- 4 in net 1 and 5 in net 2. I will be selling 4 or 5 of them toward the end of this month. Net one has my only runt. He is about half the size as all the other ones but he is my best eater. I tried to feed frozen krill to them and the little guy was the first one to accept it. Only a couple others ate some of the krill, but most of it was wasted even with the ones that ate. Everyone is eating live shore shrimp right now, including the runt. I have to give him the smallest ones I can but I hope I have enough small ones to keep him on those until he is big enough for regular sized ones. It is much easier to throw in the shore shrimp than it is to thaw out the mysis.

The color changes have become much more complex. Resting colors are either white or brown, but when they are hunting or swimming around they flash a lot of different colors and patterns. I am finally able to see the skirts and their iridophores fairly easily. The iridophores came out nicely in most of the pictures as well.

Last week I started seeing males showing their aggression. So far I have gotten 2 cuttles in net 2 to show they are males by bothering them with the pipet. I caught one cuttle in net 1 showing off his stuff tonight. I suspect there to be at least one more male in net 1, but there may only be 2 in net 2.

The cuttles in net 1 (High light, high flow) seem to be more shy, skittish, and smaller than those in net 2. Whenever I put my pipet in net 1 to move around the cuttles I always make one ink almost right away. If I bug the cuttles in net 2 they almost never ink, and they just maneuver around the pipet and flash colors. I think that Low light, low flow make the cuttles more comfortable that high light, high flow. However, the higher flow did make the cuttles in net 1 accept frozen foods more readily than those in net 2.

Here are some pictures from today. A lot of them are of the same cuttle that continually failed at catching a shrimp. He finally got it though.
 

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Sorry I've been so lax on the updates. I am really busy but with summer coming I may have a little more time to do stuff. I have a bunch of pictures I need to upload and post here so hopefully I will be able to get some of them up.

I still have 5 cuttles left. The runt I let out a couple of weeks ago but she is still 25-50% smaller than the rest of them. I have 3 males and 1 female aside from the runt, who I believe is female but I am not positive yet. I have seen some bad competition between the males and hope that as the runt matures more the fighting will subside some. My cuttles mate regularly and I have been patiently awaiting eggs, which I finally spotted this afternoon. They are in a hole between 4 rocks (aquascaped as a possible octopus den), and are difficult to see. I believe there are at least 2 clutches down there but they are not very developed. I will wait a little bit longer and then move the rocks and take a better look at the eggs. My cuttles are 5.5 months old right now, and this is the first set of eggs they have laid. Paradox was able to get eggs much faster than I and I believe it is because I feed smaller portions than he does.

Up until this week, I have been solely feeding frozen shore shrimp, no larger than 1 inch in length. I would allot 2-3 per cuttle. This week I bought some silversides and the cuttles love them. They are much easier to feed than the shore shrimp as well. I am going to try to get some larger shrimp to feed them along with the silversides.

On Friday markings appeared on all of my cuttles that allows me to easily distinguish them from each other. Before this it was possible, but difficult to do. There is one dominant male, who has dark markings all over when he is showing off. Another male has a lot more white on him than the dominant when he is displaying, and I suspect him to be the male from the other clutch, however I am not certain. The third male is smaller than the others and I have seen him display the tactic of pretending to be a female in order to keep the other males from picking on him. The 4th cuttle is female, and the 5th is the runt. Before Friday, this was the way I had to tell them apart; there was no way to be sure until they displayed, aside from the runt. On Friday face-burn was found on 2 of my cuttles - the female and the small male. The male with more white has a bite mark on his skirt from the dominant male, and the dominant male has no blemishes. I may consider naming or numbering them so they are easier to talk about.

If all goes well I should have some eggs and babies available before July. I am going to see if the fish store I work at wants to take some for display and I am also going to contact the public aquarium here (The Living Planet) once I get a good population of cuttles to see if they want any.
 
Hey,
wow! you have 5 cuttles! Thats a LOT of mouths to feed :biggrin2: in your previous post when they were 3 months they look SO similar to my two its unbelievable. I think mine are going to be two months soon though, not 3 months. Anyway good luck with your breeding and keep us updated. Post pictures!
 
Interesting you found face burn on your guys. Im still not confident thatt his comes from rubbing. Do you have measurements of Nitrates or even phosphates for the tank? Actually, Id be interested in any tank parameters that you have tools to measure.

I would definitely check nitrates though for they can get high in ceph tanks and I do feel this has an affect on breeding.

Bite marks are inevitable. My males all have them. Once they start laying eggs, expect the males to become even more territorial and aggressive.

My cuttles always decide to lay eggs in a cave in my system as well. Rich has told me that he keeps a piece of eggcrate in his system and his cuttles always lay eggs on it. It seems that once they choose a spot, they like to keep with this spot for Ive added a clay pot and a piece of egg crate without success. Regardless of how many times I remove thier eggs from the cave, they will keep laying new ones there. The cave is the darkest place in the tank. I feel they chose this spot for protective reasons.
 
shipposhack, the two i got from you are doing great, i just found eggs today (they have been breeding for quite a while). there are about 40. i will post a pic tomorrow evening when i can get to it.
 
I actually haven't tested my tank since I put the eggs in. I have also done very few water changes since getting them (the last one was February, but I was planning to do one soon). It wouldn't surprise me if the Nitrate or Phosphate was a little bit high since I have been feeding dead food for a while now. I will test the tank tomorrow at work. I believe the first couple of clutches were infertile, though I still haven't taken a really good look at them. I found another clutch under a different rock yesterday, but in the same area. This spot is much easier to see though, and can be seen from the front of the tank without moving any rockwork.

Hobogato, it's good to know that yours are breeding and laying eggs. I hope you get some fertile ones soon.
 

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